Journalism, it is said, is the first draft of history. But interviews in the form of draft history often reveal a variety of flaws — fading memory, self-serving recollections and a lack of complete knowledge about the issues discussed.
Former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri ’s candid interview to an Indian TV channel does suffer from some of these limitations. But it does have the value of bringing out just how much had been achieved by the peace process in the period 2004-2007. He is substantially right on Sir Creek and Siachen, but his take on the resolution of the mother of all disputes — Jammu and Kashmir, is only partially correct.
This is in great measure because while the first two issues were subjects to detailed official-level agreements, the J&K issue was still floating around as “non-papers” (non-attributable documents) in the back channel.
He is also right about the fact that 2007 would have most likely seen a visit by PM Manmohan Singh to Pakistan where the Siachen and Sir Creek agreements would have been finalised and given the Kashmir settlement a major push. Instead, Pakistan went into a meltdown begun by President Musharraf’s attack on the judiciary and the Lal Masjid confrontation.
Kasuri’s description of the ‘four-fold’ J&K elements is really the Pakistani version of the situation. They have been described in various formulations, including in President Musharraf’s memoir In the Line of Fire in 2006.
The Kasuri version here suggests that India and Pakistan would have demilitarised the state, given greater autonomy to their respective parts of Kashmir, joined them into a special regional entity by softening the borders between them, and had a joint mechanism to supervise the governance of the state.
The Indian view is much more frugal and realistic. It would insist on emphasising existing sovereignties, even while agreeing to measures to soften the intra-J&K borders. It had no problems with more autonomy, but its versions of demilitarisation would depend crucially on the security situation prevailing and the larger India-Pakistan relationship.
Most crucially, there was a difference in the Joint Mechanism of Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris which was supposed to supervise the new arrangements. In India’s take, this mechanism would look after subjects such as watershed management, forestry, tourism and the like, while Pakistani leaders insisted that it should also involve political and administrative features. There was no agreement on this point.
In the case of Sir Creek, the key breakthrough had come at the end of 2006 when Pakistan and India agreed to do a joint survey of the creek to come up with a single data set relating to the flow of the creek. Pakistan had also agreed to the internationally agreed practice of using the equidistance method of determining the maritime boundary. But while India was willing to concede the 160-odd square kms that Pakistan would gain here, it was not willing to accept Islamabad’s version of the Baseline Point, the last point in the land boundary uncovered during low tide. This is because this Baseline Point is the beginning of the maritime boundary and its location could lead to a gain or loss of thousands of square miles of maritime territory. This vital issue remained to be clinched.
With the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas closing in mid-2009, both India and Pakistan needed to come up with a common Baseline Point so that they could present a maritime boundary for ratification. Now both countries are likely to present their respective base-line points and the UN is unlikely to recognise the extension of their exclusive economic zone from the present 370 to 650 kms under a new UN plan.
In the case of Siachen, the idea of withdrawal and demilitarisation were agreed to in 1989 and 1992 and never implemented. Kasuri’s claim that “in fact, we had worked out certain schedules of disengagement whereby Indian and Pakistani concerns would be met”, is accurate.
This appeared in Mail Today February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Pakistan-Afghanistan war-front is not far from India
For millennia, India’s security has depended on developments in what is today the modern state of Afghanistan. Time and again, it has been shown that rulers in Delhi, be they Muslim or Hindu, have remained oblivious to the threat before being overwhelmed by it. We are in that kind of a moment right now.
The slowly-imploding Karzai government seems to be making way for another, perhaps more virulent, bout of medievalism that goes by the name of Taliban. The United States and the NATO have perhaps realised this somewhat late, and their policy to counter this is not clear, though the presence in the region of Richard Holbrooke, the new US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan indicates that the Americans intend to get back into the game.
Last week’s coordinated mini-Mumbai-style attacks in Kabul was a riposte of sorts since it showed that the Taliban now has developed sufficient infrastructure in the form of intelligence and safe-houses to mount such attacks in a well-guarded city like the Afghan capital. The fact that they are moving from their rural sanctuaries to taking on the Afghan/US/NATO establishment in Kabul is indicative of their strength and resolve.
For some time now the US has been coming around to the view that the solution lies as much in Afghanistan, as Pakistan, where the leadership of the Taliban are sheltered and where the movement has been making major strides. The government in Islamabad has lost authority in parts of the North-West Frontier Province, and its control over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas is becoming nominal.
The danger is that the radicalisation will extend now to the other parts of the country, particularly the heartland Punjab where economic problems and bad governance have created a climate of frustration and despair. Speaking before the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Director National Intelligence Denis Blair noted last week that no improvement in Afghanistan was possible “without Pakistan taking control of its border areas and improving governance, creating economic and educational opportunities throughout the country.”
Pakistan, in turn, plays the victim and blackmailer, ally and enemy at the same time. On Saturday, President Asif Ali Zardari went on about how Pakistan’s very survival was at stake in the face of the rising radicalism in the north-western part of his country. However, on Sunday we heard of how the government, which has agreed to a ceasefire with Mullah Fazlullah in Swat in exchange for a commitment that sharia law would be introduced in the district. If that is going to be the case, just who is Pakistan going to be fighting against in the American scheme of things?
Holbrooke
Pakistan has claimed that India’s consulates and projects are being used to expand its hold over Afghanistan. The reality is that in recent times, there is only one government that has managed to control Afghan politics, and that country’s capital is Islamabad. There is nothing India can do which will give India the kind of position Pakistan had in Afghanistan in the 1992-2001 period.
The problem really is Islamabad’s desires in Afghanistan. Control over Afghanistan is viewed as providing strategic depth by the Army, but they are also abundant cautions against the rise of Pakhtun irredentism. No Afghan government recognises the Durand Line as the legitimate border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the developments of the past two years seem to be merely underscoring that fact, albeit in a negative way.
The current Holbrooke mission to the region is being billed as a “study” tour for the Obama Administration’s policy review. The US knows what it wants—a redeployment of the 600,000 strong Pakistan Army to the west to defeat what Zardari said was an existential threat to Pakistan. Unfortunately for Pakistan and the US, the Army is bent on maintaining its deployment in the east against India. Most of the fighting in NWFP and FATA is being done by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, with the army only providing logistic and fire-support through artillery and helicopter gun-ships.
New Delhi
The Americans realise that the situation is far too serious to see of it as a Great Game. The threat to their supply lines have forced them to look to the north to Central Asia for alternate routes. This is a region traditionally under Russian sway, but the Americans have taken diplomatic initiatives in Moscow and Beijing to aid the creation of what they call a Northern Distribution Network to prevent being choked at Khyber Pass. The Obama Administration has shown a willingness to even deal with Iran, which could provide a much easier route via Chah Bahar in Iran to Afghanistan via the new Indian-built road. Accepting that Afghanistan is our security frontier is one thing, doing something about it is another. The big question is: What can we do? We are already large aid givers and we run one of the more successful programmes on rebuilding the shattered infrastructure of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis believe that we are running a massive campaign of destabilisation of Pakistan from our embassy in Kabul and our consulates in the other cities of the country.
The facts are otherwise. Had this been true, the United States with a vital interest in getting Islamabad’s cooperation would have had something to say about it.
The US had made it clear earlier that they were not interested in Indian assistance to the fledgling Afghan army and police, though we did give the former several hundred light utility vehicles some years ago.
But the problem for the US and NATO is that they lack one of the most vital ingredients of counter-insurgency—boots on ground. India could have been tempted to participate in the International Security Assistance Force in 2001-02, but to go in now would be a folly.
Better value could be obtained by undertaking training of Afghan army and paramilitary forces here in India. The Indian forces have a great deal of knowledge and experience in running counter-insurgency policies.
Ally
The Americans know that only when India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US are on the same side will they be able to win the war against the forces of violent extremism that are spreading in the region. Knowing what we must do is the easy part, the infinitely more difficult one is to actually make common cause on the ground.
One major reason is the dilemma that the US itself confronts. What is it to make of the Pakistan Army? What if the Army is so deeply involved in backing terror as an instrument of policy that it cannot be redeemed? If so, the US will have to think of an alternate and more drastic policy. If not, it can systematically pressure the Pakistan army leadership to seriously take up the counter insurgency challenge.
India’s reasonable and responsible response to the Mumbai attack has undermined efforts by the Pakistan Army to deflect this pressure. But there could be more Mumbais and the Indians may not react in the same way. But New Delhi needs to look at the larger picture emerging.
A look at the map will tell you
why. Swat directly borders the Northern Areas of Jammu & Kashmir. The inter-communal (Shia-Sunni) relations there have been systematically poisoned since the Zia ul Haq years. If Swat is handed over to the Sufi Mohammed and his Taliban, there can be no doubt that the Northern Areas will become the next target. India cannot but be singed by the fire there.
The war in Afghanistan is already our war.
This article appeared in Mail Today February 17, 2009
The slowly-imploding Karzai government seems to be making way for another, perhaps more virulent, bout of medievalism that goes by the name of Taliban. The United States and the NATO have perhaps realised this somewhat late, and their policy to counter this is not clear, though the presence in the region of Richard Holbrooke, the new US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan indicates that the Americans intend to get back into the game.
Last week’s coordinated mini-Mumbai-style attacks in Kabul was a riposte of sorts since it showed that the Taliban now has developed sufficient infrastructure in the form of intelligence and safe-houses to mount such attacks in a well-guarded city like the Afghan capital. The fact that they are moving from their rural sanctuaries to taking on the Afghan/US/NATO establishment in Kabul is indicative of their strength and resolve.
For some time now the US has been coming around to the view that the solution lies as much in Afghanistan, as Pakistan, where the leadership of the Taliban are sheltered and where the movement has been making major strides. The government in Islamabad has lost authority in parts of the North-West Frontier Province, and its control over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas is becoming nominal.
The danger is that the radicalisation will extend now to the other parts of the country, particularly the heartland Punjab where economic problems and bad governance have created a climate of frustration and despair. Speaking before the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Director National Intelligence Denis Blair noted last week that no improvement in Afghanistan was possible “without Pakistan taking control of its border areas and improving governance, creating economic and educational opportunities throughout the country.”
Pakistan, in turn, plays the victim and blackmailer, ally and enemy at the same time. On Saturday, President Asif Ali Zardari went on about how Pakistan’s very survival was at stake in the face of the rising radicalism in the north-western part of his country. However, on Sunday we heard of how the government, which has agreed to a ceasefire with Mullah Fazlullah in Swat in exchange for a commitment that sharia law would be introduced in the district. If that is going to be the case, just who is Pakistan going to be fighting against in the American scheme of things?
Holbrooke
Pakistan has claimed that India’s consulates and projects are being used to expand its hold over Afghanistan. The reality is that in recent times, there is only one government that has managed to control Afghan politics, and that country’s capital is Islamabad. There is nothing India can do which will give India the kind of position Pakistan had in Afghanistan in the 1992-2001 period.
The problem really is Islamabad’s desires in Afghanistan. Control over Afghanistan is viewed as providing strategic depth by the Army, but they are also abundant cautions against the rise of Pakhtun irredentism. No Afghan government recognises the Durand Line as the legitimate border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the developments of the past two years seem to be merely underscoring that fact, albeit in a negative way.
US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee
The current Holbrooke mission to the region is being billed as a “study” tour for the Obama Administration’s policy review. The US knows what it wants—a redeployment of the 600,000 strong Pakistan Army to the west to defeat what Zardari said was an existential threat to Pakistan. Unfortunately for Pakistan and the US, the Army is bent on maintaining its deployment in the east against India. Most of the fighting in NWFP and FATA is being done by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, with the army only providing logistic and fire-support through artillery and helicopter gun-ships.
New Delhi
The Americans realise that the situation is far too serious to see of it as a Great Game. The threat to their supply lines have forced them to look to the north to Central Asia for alternate routes. This is a region traditionally under Russian sway, but the Americans have taken diplomatic initiatives in Moscow and Beijing to aid the creation of what they call a Northern Distribution Network to prevent being choked at Khyber Pass. The Obama Administration has shown a willingness to even deal with Iran, which could provide a much easier route via Chah Bahar in Iran to Afghanistan via the new Indian-built road. Accepting that Afghanistan is our security frontier is one thing, doing something about it is another. The big question is: What can we do? We are already large aid givers and we run one of the more successful programmes on rebuilding the shattered infrastructure of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis believe that we are running a massive campaign of destabilisation of Pakistan from our embassy in Kabul and our consulates in the other cities of the country.
The facts are otherwise. Had this been true, the United States with a vital interest in getting Islamabad’s cooperation would have had something to say about it.
The US had made it clear earlier that they were not interested in Indian assistance to the fledgling Afghan army and police, though we did give the former several hundred light utility vehicles some years ago.
But the problem for the US and NATO is that they lack one of the most vital ingredients of counter-insurgency—boots on ground. India could have been tempted to participate in the International Security Assistance Force in 2001-02, but to go in now would be a folly.
Better value could be obtained by undertaking training of Afghan army and paramilitary forces here in India. The Indian forces have a great deal of knowledge and experience in running counter-insurgency policies.
Ally
The Americans know that only when India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US are on the same side will they be able to win the war against the forces of violent extremism that are spreading in the region. Knowing what we must do is the easy part, the infinitely more difficult one is to actually make common cause on the ground.
One major reason is the dilemma that the US itself confronts. What is it to make of the Pakistan Army? What if the Army is so deeply involved in backing terror as an instrument of policy that it cannot be redeemed? If so, the US will have to think of an alternate and more drastic policy. If not, it can systematically pressure the Pakistan army leadership to seriously take up the counter insurgency challenge.
India’s reasonable and responsible response to the Mumbai attack has undermined efforts by the Pakistan Army to deflect this pressure. But there could be more Mumbais and the Indians may not react in the same way. But New Delhi needs to look at the larger picture emerging.
A look at the map will tell you
why. Swat directly borders the Northern Areas of Jammu & Kashmir. The inter-communal (Shia-Sunni) relations there have been systematically poisoned since the Zia ul Haq years. If Swat is handed over to the Sufi Mohammed and his Taliban, there can be no doubt that the Northern Areas will become the next target. India cannot but be singed by the fire there.
The war in Afghanistan is already our war.
This article appeared in Mail Today February 17, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
The jihadist Pakistan Army is our real headache
This came out on the morning of the day in which Pakistan responded to the Indian dossier of January 5
What are we to make of the peculiar pattern of evasion, disinformation and dissimulation adopted by Pakistan on the Mumbai issue? More importantly, what are we to do about it?
In the past two-and-a-half months, Islamabad has enacted a bizarre drama which began with the midnight flight of its army chief’s aircraft to retrieve its foreign minister from India, and an unexplained call to its president threatening war by someone claiming to be the external affairs minister of India, a man whose accent is so distinct that it is probably impossible to imitate.
Since then we have been witness to bluff and bluster over Amir Ajmal Qasab’s nationality and parsing the difference between the word “evidence” and “information”. The contretemps over the Indian dossier was, then, the chronicle of a drama foretold which has featured a series of leaks suggesting that the attacks were planned everywhere else but in Pakistan, as well as a standup comic performance by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamshul Hasan, declaring that India had faked the Mumbai transcripts and that the attacks had not come from Pakistan.
Qasab
The very next day, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said that the High Commissioner had spoken out of line. Then came the suggestion that the attacks had been organized by Bangladeshi elements and that the planning for it may have been carried out in Dubai. Now, it is true that the Harkat-ul-jehad Islami, based in that country and with networks extending to Dubai, has carried out terrorist strikes in India. But all of them have been at the instance of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. In the Mumbai matter, some reference was made to the acquisition of SIM cards from Kolkata. But there was never any suggestion that Bangladesh was involved. Austria, another country from where SIMs were sourced, has been mooted in Pakistan as a place where the attack originated.
After several weeks of sending messages to India through the media, Pakistan was expected to give a formal reply to the dossier this week. But now it seems that they are not ready. Citing what they say is a lack of adequate information given by the Indian side, the Defence Committee of the Cabinet of the Gilani government says that some more “clarifications” and “information” was needed from India. Just why the DCC of Pakistan needs to meet on the issue of a dossier related to a terrorist crime is a mystery. In all likelihood, the formal Pakistani response, too, will hem and haw and speak of incomplete information even while pointing fingers at Dubai, Bangladesh and Austria.
What are India’s options then?
Not too many, and none satisfactory. The issue is not “information”. Whatever India has provided to Islamabad corroborates with information independently collected by foreign intelligence agencies in the US, France and Russia. After all, the encounter took some 60 hours and the terrorists hardly made any effort to scramble or hide their conversations. Even those electronic intelligence-gatherers who may have been caught napping in the first place had time to tune in. Pakistan would have been able to brazen it out but for the capture of Qasab. His detention in Mumbai and his confession present a real problem to all the theories that are being spun out in Islamabad.
In the case of the Parliament House attack on December 13, 2001, India was not even able to get the actual names of the attackers, let alone their nationalities. The people convicted subsequently were Indian nationals whose main crime was to provide shelter and logistics support to the terrorists. The police investigation of this case was notably incompetent, which included the fact that not even fingerprints were taken from the car in which the terrorists crashed into Parliament House.
In the case of Mumbai, a great deal of evidence has been gathered, some of it independently and professionally, by the FBI through its own technical means, including accessing Thuraya satellite phone records from its headquarters in Abu Dhabi, as well as through the mobile phones of the dead terrorists.
Army
Questioning that evidence is not going to be a credible exercise. But perhaps Pakistan already knows this, and that is why it decided to up the stake by releasing the disgraced nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. The message that has gone out seems to be that Pakistan is telling the world: We know what you think of us, and we don’t care.
You can call it a high-risk strategy. Thumbing their nose into the face of world opinion will cost Pakistan dear. But the aim is not to further the cause of a nation, but to protect and preserve the interests of an organization — the Pakistan Army. Since this organization considers itself the main sentinel of the “Pakistan idea” it is conflating its interests with those of the country. But the fact is that right now it sees itself as fighting for its life. Consider the scenario before the Mumbai attack. The army was involved in a deeply unpopular campaign against Baitullah Mehshud and the Pakistani Taliban on one hand, and the Al-Qaeda-Taliban alliance of Afghanistan.
The Mumbai attack has created a scenario where the two — Mehshud and the Taliban-AQ alliance through its spokesman Mustafa Abu al-Yazid — have both declared their willingness to fight the Pakistani jihad, against India; presumably with the Pakistan Army. This may not be entirely pleasing to the GHQ in Rawalpindi, but they cannot be entirely displeased either. This means that they can “preserve” their gains in Afghanistan and at the same time torpedo the India-Pakistan peace process which was working well till the Mumbai incident.
Reconstruction
What is left is to manage the Americans. Pakistanis have been traditionally very good at this. Even as late as 2008, a US Government Accounting Office report admitted that the US had been systematically taken for a ride by Musharraf. The current Army chief Pervez Ashfaq Kiyani is scheduled to go to Washington soon. No doubt he has a revised version of the old banana-oil formula ready for sale to the Americans.
What the US and other western countries have to realise is that you cannot deal with the problems in Pakistan by throwing money and aid into the situation. That’s like adding fuel to the fire. What is needed is a systematic policy of depriving the fire of oxygen. In political terms it means a hands-on approach for dealing with the problem itself — the Pakistan Army which sees terrorism, or “sub-conventional” war as an essential element of its strategy.
The pattern of India-Pakistan relations have revealed that there is a vested interest in the Pakistan Army in preventing a normalization of relations between the two countries. This is the hard reality that emerges from the sorry story of the Mumbai attacks which has more or less put paid to our twenty-year-old strategy of persisting with dialogue and confidence-building measures regardless of the provocations that have been thrown in our way by the Army’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or, in the case of Kargil, the army itself.
India now needs to alter its view that it should deal with whoever is in power in Islamabad, which is usually the Army. That institution is beyond reform; it needs dismantling and reconstitution. If necessary we should be prepared to sit it out in a long freeze, until Pakistan has credible institutions which are not fundamentally hostile to the idea of India or normal relations with us.
This was published in Mail Today February 12, 2009
What are we to make of the peculiar pattern of evasion, disinformation and dissimulation adopted by Pakistan on the Mumbai issue? More importantly, what are we to do about it?
In the past two-and-a-half months, Islamabad has enacted a bizarre drama which began with the midnight flight of its army chief’s aircraft to retrieve its foreign minister from India, and an unexplained call to its president threatening war by someone claiming to be the external affairs minister of India, a man whose accent is so distinct that it is probably impossible to imitate.
Since then we have been witness to bluff and bluster over Amir Ajmal Qasab’s nationality and parsing the difference between the word “evidence” and “information”. The contretemps over the Indian dossier was, then, the chronicle of a drama foretold which has featured a series of leaks suggesting that the attacks were planned everywhere else but in Pakistan, as well as a standup comic performance by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamshul Hasan, declaring that India had faked the Mumbai transcripts and that the attacks had not come from Pakistan.
Qasab
The very next day, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said that the High Commissioner had spoken out of line. Then came the suggestion that the attacks had been organized by Bangladeshi elements and that the planning for it may have been carried out in Dubai. Now, it is true that the Harkat-ul-jehad Islami, based in that country and with networks extending to Dubai, has carried out terrorist strikes in India. But all of them have been at the instance of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. In the Mumbai matter, some reference was made to the acquisition of SIM cards from Kolkata. But there was never any suggestion that Bangladesh was involved. Austria, another country from where SIMs were sourced, has been mooted in Pakistan as a place where the attack originated.
After several weeks of sending messages to India through the media, Pakistan was expected to give a formal reply to the dossier this week. But now it seems that they are not ready. Citing what they say is a lack of adequate information given by the Indian side, the Defence Committee of the Cabinet of the Gilani government says that some more “clarifications” and “information” was needed from India. Just why the DCC of Pakistan needs to meet on the issue of a dossier related to a terrorist crime is a mystery. In all likelihood, the formal Pakistani response, too, will hem and haw and speak of incomplete information even while pointing fingers at Dubai, Bangladesh and Austria.
What are India’s options then?
Not too many, and none satisfactory. The issue is not “information”. Whatever India has provided to Islamabad corroborates with information independently collected by foreign intelligence agencies in the US, France and Russia. After all, the encounter took some 60 hours and the terrorists hardly made any effort to scramble or hide their conversations. Even those electronic intelligence-gatherers who may have been caught napping in the first place had time to tune in. Pakistan would have been able to brazen it out but for the capture of Qasab. His detention in Mumbai and his confession present a real problem to all the theories that are being spun out in Islamabad.
In the case of the Parliament House attack on December 13, 2001, India was not even able to get the actual names of the attackers, let alone their nationalities. The people convicted subsequently were Indian nationals whose main crime was to provide shelter and logistics support to the terrorists. The police investigation of this case was notably incompetent, which included the fact that not even fingerprints were taken from the car in which the terrorists crashed into Parliament House.
In the case of Mumbai, a great deal of evidence has been gathered, some of it independently and professionally, by the FBI through its own technical means, including accessing Thuraya satellite phone records from its headquarters in Abu Dhabi, as well as through the mobile phones of the dead terrorists.
Army
Questioning that evidence is not going to be a credible exercise. But perhaps Pakistan already knows this, and that is why it decided to up the stake by releasing the disgraced nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. The message that has gone out seems to be that Pakistan is telling the world: We know what you think of us, and we don’t care.
You can call it a high-risk strategy. Thumbing their nose into the face of world opinion will cost Pakistan dear. But the aim is not to further the cause of a nation, but to protect and preserve the interests of an organization — the Pakistan Army. Since this organization considers itself the main sentinel of the “Pakistan idea” it is conflating its interests with those of the country. But the fact is that right now it sees itself as fighting for its life. Consider the scenario before the Mumbai attack. The army was involved in a deeply unpopular campaign against Baitullah Mehshud and the Pakistani Taliban on one hand, and the Al-Qaeda-Taliban alliance of Afghanistan.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani with General Pervez Ashfaq Kiyani
The Mumbai attack has created a scenario where the two — Mehshud and the Taliban-AQ alliance through its spokesman Mustafa Abu al-Yazid — have both declared their willingness to fight the Pakistani jihad, against India; presumably with the Pakistan Army. This may not be entirely pleasing to the GHQ in Rawalpindi, but they cannot be entirely displeased either. This means that they can “preserve” their gains in Afghanistan and at the same time torpedo the India-Pakistan peace process which was working well till the Mumbai incident.
Reconstruction
What is left is to manage the Americans. Pakistanis have been traditionally very good at this. Even as late as 2008, a US Government Accounting Office report admitted that the US had been systematically taken for a ride by Musharraf. The current Army chief Pervez Ashfaq Kiyani is scheduled to go to Washington soon. No doubt he has a revised version of the old banana-oil formula ready for sale to the Americans.
What the US and other western countries have to realise is that you cannot deal with the problems in Pakistan by throwing money and aid into the situation. That’s like adding fuel to the fire. What is needed is a systematic policy of depriving the fire of oxygen. In political terms it means a hands-on approach for dealing with the problem itself — the Pakistan Army which sees terrorism, or “sub-conventional” war as an essential element of its strategy.
The pattern of India-Pakistan relations have revealed that there is a vested interest in the Pakistan Army in preventing a normalization of relations between the two countries. This is the hard reality that emerges from the sorry story of the Mumbai attacks which has more or less put paid to our twenty-year-old strategy of persisting with dialogue and confidence-building measures regardless of the provocations that have been thrown in our way by the Army’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or, in the case of Kargil, the army itself.
India now needs to alter its view that it should deal with whoever is in power in Islamabad, which is usually the Army. That institution is beyond reform; it needs dismantling and reconstitution. If necessary we should be prepared to sit it out in a long freeze, until Pakistan has credible institutions which are not fundamentally hostile to the idea of India or normal relations with us.
This was published in Mail Today February 12, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
Sucking out the terror poison
UK’s four-pronged approach to deradicalise its Muslim minority holds important lessons for the Indian effort to counter extremism at home
Different nations have reacted differently to terrorist attacks. The US response to Nine-Eleven has been harsh. It has ramped up home defences and undertaken a controversial global war on terror (GWOT) abroad. Russia has acted with, what some would say, characteristic brutality, leveling Grozny to fight the Chechens. India’s response has been fitful and dithering. It has a done a bit of everything and nothing. Britain, on the other hand, has evolved a sophisticated strategy which rests on four pillars — prevent, pursue, protect and prepare.
The July 7, 2005 bombings killed over 80 people in London. The shock was so much greater because most of those who carried out the acts were second generation Britons, albeit of Pakistani descent. In the mea culpa thereafter, UK acknowledged that it had for too long, in the name of multiculturalism, permitted migrant communities to live in isolation where unemployment and unequal opportunities accentuated the sense of alienation and resentment.
The Four P’s strategy has involved Britain supporting the US GWOT abroad and shoring up the home defences as well. New laws have been passed to monitor the borders and to deal with terrorist conspiracies. Police departments have been revamped, as have the intelligence services which have doubled in size and begun an unprecedented campaign of recruiting personnel from racial and religious minorities.
Prevention
Recently, I had the opportunity to study aspects of the first strand of the Four P’s strategy — preventing the emergence of violent radicalism on the part of the Muslim youth in the UK.
The plan addresses disadvantage, mis-perception, and alienation by putting money into a number of projects addressing inequality and discrimination. Targeted schemes have sought to improve the educational and physical infrastructure of the ghettoes, and even more boldly, to directly challenge radical theology by promoting moderate Islam as well as inter-faith dialogue. The approach has been to knit together various ministries, local
governments, civil society, community institutions like mosques, gurudwaras and temples to attack the problem.
According to Rhydian Philips, of the counter-terrorism department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the idea behind the strategy is to deal with grievances which can make people vulnerable to recruitment. These could relate to justice, employment and education. The central government has provided £90 million for three years for NGOs to promote youth activity, reform curriculum, build local police capability and fund moderate Islamic preachers to talk to communities in UK, as well as fund road-shows in target countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
In Leicester, for example, the Home Office works with the Islamic Foundation which is running a course for several Indian imams who are currently at the Markfield Institute for Higher Education. According to the Executive Director Mr Irshad Baqui, the Foundation is aimed at promoting a better understanding of Islam. Its work comprises publications and research through the MIHE focusing on issues relating to Islamic economics, inter-faith issues and support services to new converts. The British authorities are interested in the specialist short-courses the foundation offers in chaplaincy — a concept unknown outside Christianity, but considered important to service Muslim military and prison populations.
In Birmingham, where in 2007, the police bust a plot by several British Muslims to kidnap and behead a British service man, efforts are under way to promote community cohesion and cultural leadership of the “right type.” According to Mr. Mashhuq Ally, the Head of Equality and Diversity, the goal is for citizens of all backgrounds to think of the city as their own.
He said that in recent weeks, his department has worked with various groups to ensure that feelings over Mumbai or Gaza don’t spill over into violent confrontation between communities.
Among the current city projects under the rubric “Preventing Violent Extremism” is the suggestive “Reclaiming Islam” concept aimed at reducing the risk of mosques being infiltrated by violent extremists by funding special activities. Another two projects target madrassahs to provide a common curriculum that will include learning of the Quran, Islamic studies and citizenship. They will also support madrassahs to meet their legal requirements and provide a safe learning environment for children.
Five youth inclusion programmes seek to create a set of “success clubs” designed to get young people to develop knowledge skills and attitudes that will promote personal success. The clubs promote the forging of links between alienated youngsters and their elders in a “journey of the soul” and study circles to help young people to develop a better understanding of Islam. The person in-charge of these activities is Detective Chief Inspector Paul Marriot who works through the Birmingham City Council.
Problems
Not everything is working smoothly in implementing the Prevent policy. According to Gareth Price, Head of the Asia Program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, there are worries that radicals could use the programmes to promote their interests. Michael Whine, Director of the Defence and Group Relations Division of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, says that anyway it is too early to say whether the strategy works or not.
He, too, worries that money provided for deradicalisation could end up being used for the very opposite purpose. As it is, I was struck by the fact that the Chairman of the Islamic Foundation was Professor Khurshid Ahmad, a leading light of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan.
What is important, however, is that the UK is not sitting back to allow the situation to unfold, but engaging the issue of terrorism on multiple fronts. As Kay Hampton, Professor of Communities and Race Relations and a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission pointed out, “You need leadership and investment from the top, otherwise the communities will be leaderless.”
There are obvious parallels between the evolving British experience and India. Beginning 1950, the Indian version of secularism has sought to provide equal space for all faiths to function and flourish in this country. Provisions were made to ensure that the Muslims would be governed by their personal laws, even while the Constitution took the view that over time, communities would move at their own pace towards adopting a common civil code and a common sense of citizenship. Unfortunately that did not happen. Communal violence increasingly drove the Indian Muslim community into ghettoes and
their economic status began to decline relative to other segments of the
population.
Consensus
The result today is not dissimilar to what obtained in UK — Muslims in isolated communities live their own lives and do not understand the faith and precepts of others, just as the others do not understand theirs. The economic and social deprivation of the community has been listed by the Sachar committee in considerable detail.
But that is where the parallel stops. While there is political consensus in UK that something needs to be done to deradicalise the Muslim youth, if necessary by spending money on special schemes, in India, such steps are stymied by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar who believe that any effort to ameliorate, or even address, the condition of the Indian Muslims smacks of “appeasement.” The Congress and other political parties are not without fault either. Over the years they have cynically used the insecurity of the Muslim community to harvest votes.
The consequences of this situation are obvious and dangerous. In the slum ghettos of Indian cities we are witnessing the emergence of a Muslim underclass which has little or no connect with the country’s mainstream or the traditional moderate clergy. Such a class is ideally suited for recruitment by the jihadi elements who already stalk our society. The Indian Mujahideen is the first, but by no means the last, manifestation of this danger.
Published in Mail Today February 5, 2009
Different nations have reacted differently to terrorist attacks. The US response to Nine-Eleven has been harsh. It has ramped up home defences and undertaken a controversial global war on terror (GWOT) abroad. Russia has acted with, what some would say, characteristic brutality, leveling Grozny to fight the Chechens. India’s response has been fitful and dithering. It has a done a bit of everything and nothing. Britain, on the other hand, has evolved a sophisticated strategy which rests on four pillars — prevent, pursue, protect and prepare.
The July 7, 2005 bombings killed over 80 people in London. The shock was so much greater because most of those who carried out the acts were second generation Britons, albeit of Pakistani descent. In the mea culpa thereafter, UK acknowledged that it had for too long, in the name of multiculturalism, permitted migrant communities to live in isolation where unemployment and unequal opportunities accentuated the sense of alienation and resentment.
The Four P’s strategy has involved Britain supporting the US GWOT abroad and shoring up the home defences as well. New laws have been passed to monitor the borders and to deal with terrorist conspiracies. Police departments have been revamped, as have the intelligence services which have doubled in size and begun an unprecedented campaign of recruiting personnel from racial and religious minorities.
Prevention
Recently, I had the opportunity to study aspects of the first strand of the Four P’s strategy — preventing the emergence of violent radicalism on the part of the Muslim youth in the UK.
The plan addresses disadvantage, mis-perception, and alienation by putting money into a number of projects addressing inequality and discrimination. Targeted schemes have sought to improve the educational and physical infrastructure of the ghettoes, and even more boldly, to directly challenge radical theology by promoting moderate Islam as well as inter-faith dialogue. The approach has been to knit together various ministries, local
governments, civil society, community institutions like mosques, gurudwaras and temples to attack the problem.
According to Rhydian Philips, of the counter-terrorism department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the idea behind the strategy is to deal with grievances which can make people vulnerable to recruitment. These could relate to justice, employment and education. The central government has provided £90 million for three years for NGOs to promote youth activity, reform curriculum, build local police capability and fund moderate Islamic preachers to talk to communities in UK, as well as fund road-shows in target countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
In Leicester, for example, the Home Office works with the Islamic Foundation which is running a course for several Indian imams who are currently at the Markfield Institute for Higher Education. According to the Executive Director Mr Irshad Baqui, the Foundation is aimed at promoting a better understanding of Islam. Its work comprises publications and research through the MIHE focusing on issues relating to Islamic economics, inter-faith issues and support services to new converts. The British authorities are interested in the specialist short-courses the foundation offers in chaplaincy — a concept unknown outside Christianity, but considered important to service Muslim military and prison populations.
In Birmingham, where in 2007, the police bust a plot by several British Muslims to kidnap and behead a British service man, efforts are under way to promote community cohesion and cultural leadership of the “right type.” According to Mr. Mashhuq Ally, the Head of Equality and Diversity, the goal is for citizens of all backgrounds to think of the city as their own.
He said that in recent weeks, his department has worked with various groups to ensure that feelings over Mumbai or Gaza don’t spill over into violent confrontation between communities.
Among the current city projects under the rubric “Preventing Violent Extremism” is the suggestive “Reclaiming Islam” concept aimed at reducing the risk of mosques being infiltrated by violent extremists by funding special activities. Another two projects target madrassahs to provide a common curriculum that will include learning of the Quran, Islamic studies and citizenship. They will also support madrassahs to meet their legal requirements and provide a safe learning environment for children.
Five youth inclusion programmes seek to create a set of “success clubs” designed to get young people to develop knowledge skills and attitudes that will promote personal success. The clubs promote the forging of links between alienated youngsters and their elders in a “journey of the soul” and study circles to help young people to develop a better understanding of Islam. The person in-charge of these activities is Detective Chief Inspector Paul Marriot who works through the Birmingham City Council.
Problems
Not everything is working smoothly in implementing the Prevent policy. According to Gareth Price, Head of the Asia Program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, there are worries that radicals could use the programmes to promote their interests. Michael Whine, Director of the Defence and Group Relations Division of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, says that anyway it is too early to say whether the strategy works or not.
He, too, worries that money provided for deradicalisation could end up being used for the very opposite purpose. As it is, I was struck by the fact that the Chairman of the Islamic Foundation was Professor Khurshid Ahmad, a leading light of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan.
What is important, however, is that the UK is not sitting back to allow the situation to unfold, but engaging the issue of terrorism on multiple fronts. As Kay Hampton, Professor of Communities and Race Relations and a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission pointed out, “You need leadership and investment from the top, otherwise the communities will be leaderless.”
There are obvious parallels between the evolving British experience and India. Beginning 1950, the Indian version of secularism has sought to provide equal space for all faiths to function and flourish in this country. Provisions were made to ensure that the Muslims would be governed by their personal laws, even while the Constitution took the view that over time, communities would move at their own pace towards adopting a common civil code and a common sense of citizenship. Unfortunately that did not happen. Communal violence increasingly drove the Indian Muslim community into ghettoes and
their economic status began to decline relative to other segments of the
population.
Consensus
The result today is not dissimilar to what obtained in UK — Muslims in isolated communities live their own lives and do not understand the faith and precepts of others, just as the others do not understand theirs. The economic and social deprivation of the community has been listed by the Sachar committee in considerable detail.
But that is where the parallel stops. While there is political consensus in UK that something needs to be done to deradicalise the Muslim youth, if necessary by spending money on special schemes, in India, such steps are stymied by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar who believe that any effort to ameliorate, or even address, the condition of the Indian Muslims smacks of “appeasement.” The Congress and other political parties are not without fault either. Over the years they have cynically used the insecurity of the Muslim community to harvest votes.
The consequences of this situation are obvious and dangerous. In the slum ghettos of Indian cities we are witnessing the emergence of a Muslim underclass which has little or no connect with the country’s mainstream or the traditional moderate clergy. Such a class is ideally suited for recruitment by the jihadi elements who already stalk our society. The Indian Mujahideen is the first, but by no means the last, manifestation of this danger.
Published in Mail Today February 5, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
The lack of political leadership is at the root of the failure of the armed forces
At the heart of the weaknesses of the Indian Army are its higher management and its relationship to the governmental structure. India is the only major democracy where the armed forces headquarters are outside the top echelons of government.
The Chiefs of Army, Air and Naval Staff - who function autonomously of each other - have become operational commanders rather than what they were meant to be - Chiefs of Staff to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. This means that they are forced to play the role of future planners, trainers as well as operational commanders. Given the real and continuing commitment of the army in operational roles in the form of counter- insurgency in large tracts of the country, this cannot but have a negative impact on the task of long-term planning, decisions on equipment acquisition, force levels, doctrines and training.
This combination of roles has cost the country a great deal. For example, in 1971, confusion over the posture to adopt in Chamb was complicated by last- minute orders by the Army Chief, Sam Manekshaw, that the force should not adopt an aggressive posture. The Army commander, Lt. Gen K. P. Candeth, who had planned a pre- emptive offensive in this region, which India had lost to Pakistan in 1965, was forced to change tack just two days before the offensive was to begin. Units that were ready for an offensive had to suddenly alter their posture and the result was that when the Pakistani attack came, they were unprepared.
India may have gained Bangladesh in the war, but we lost Chamb.
Conformity
Because the culture is command, rather than collegial, issues that need debate and discussion within the system on the subjects of force levels, acquisitions and strategy are passed from top to down. There is also that well- known instance when in 1965 Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri consulted the Army Chief, General J. N. Chaudhary, as to whether it would be all right if the country went in for a ceasefire as demanded by the UN. Without consulting his Air Force and Navy colleagues, leave alone his own staff officers, the army chief reportedly told Shastri that since the army was running short of ammunition, it would be a good idea to accept the UN demand. In fact, India had ample ammunition stocks at its rear depots. It was Pakistan which was dangerously short, and had India prolonged the war for just ten days, our neighbour would have been in deep trouble.
There are other negative consequences of the command culture.
According to a DRDO veteran, "There were several instances where army chiefs involved themselves on arcane issues such as the design of the INSAS carbine or the Arjun tank.
Because of the army culture, the specialist departments such as the Director of Weapons and Equipment or the Director General Mechanised Forces, simply fell in line with his view, even while they did not agree with him and this contributed to project delays." The 2001 group of ministers' report noted that the existing Chiefs of Staff system - where the senior- most service chief is designated chairman, chiefs of staff committee - had "not been effective in fulfilling its mandate." It felt that a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and a Vice- Chief of Defence Staff were needed to provide, first, single- point advice to the government. Second, to administer the strategic forces - essentially manage the military aspects of the country's nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.
Integration
Third, to oversee the integration of the armed forces, starting with joint planning and budgeting and setting up priorities vis- à- vis the demands of the three services. Fourth, to press the process by promoting "jointness" in the operational use of the armed forces. The CDS was seen only as a first step in a reform that would have eventually seen the emergence of theatre commanders who would - in their respective theatres or geographical areas - head all three forces - the army, navy and the air force.
The lack of a CDS means that the Prime Minister and his colleagues do not have single- point advice on military issues since each service chief gives his own views to the government.
It also means that the armed forces do not have an unfettered commander whose principal job is to fight a war and prevail over an external enemy rather than get involved in issues of provisioning, training and acquisitions.
It also means that there is no systematized access to the views and expertise of the uniformed services in managing the national security of the country. The aim of the group of ministers' report of 2001, the biggest exercise in reforming the defence management of the country, was to get the service headquarters within the government's fold. However, this was opposed by some politicians, including worthies of the United Progressive Alliance, who thought that since this involved appointing a Chief of Defence Staff, this could give excessive power to one person. Opposition also came from the bureaucracies - both the armed forces as well as civilian. Currently, they function as a department of the Ministry of Defence. The civilian bureaucrats of the ministry of defence and their uniformed colleagues may serve the same country, but they see each other as their principal adversaries.
At the time the report was accepted by the Cabinet, on May 11, 2001, a government press release said that "the recommendation in respect of the institution of the Chief of Defence Staff (would) be considered later after the government is able to consult various political parties." But four years later, on November, 2005, the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee declared that " a decision regarding appointment of the CDS can be taken only after wider consultations with various political parties."
Inaction
The sad reality is that only the political class can guarantee the integration of the armed forces. This has been true for even countries like the US and the UK. The military and civilian bureaucracies have developed such a major vested interest in the existing system that they can find all kinds of means to undermine efforts towards reform. This is most obviously visible in the so- called action taken reports of the MoD bureaucrats in response to the various standing and consultative committee reports of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The politicians know that something is wrong, they can probably see through the evasive tactics, but they don't choose to act because the government ministers too, as a rule, go along with their bureaucrats.
Countries who are deeply involved in security issues such as the United States, China or the UK have a tradition of effective political management of the armed forces. Indeed, in China, membership of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party is arguably a more important position than even that of the party Politburo. India needs to develop a culture of effective political management of the armed forces, without which we will be doomed to remain where we are. In our system, the political class has been given the authority and legitimacy to act on matters of defence.
They must accept that responsibility instead of constantly kicking the can down the road.
This article appeared in Mail Today January 29, 2009
Sunday, February 01, 2009
My final article on why the army is unprepared
The series of articles on our unprepared army came in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist strike. When the government asked the three forces if they were ready for action that could lead to all-out war, the army demurred, seeking more time, because they said that they had some critical shortages.
The army has professed outrage at these articles, though they have been careful not to directly refute them. They seem to think we are questioning their bravery; we are not.
Even today the army will go in if ordered and sacrifice their lives. But they will not be able to deliver the outcome the country desires-- the defeat/destruction of the Pakistan army without taking punishment themselves and possibly opening up the country to serious politico-military hazards. In 1971, the country won a spectacular victory in East Pakistan. But people have forgotten that we lost Chamb.
Remember George S Patton's famous words: "Now I want you to remember that no bastard won a war by dying for his country. he won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his..."
The other army counter to these articles is to claim that these are based on old C&AG reports. That may be true, but what I have shown is that there is a trend of "under-performance" (that's actually too mild a word) in a whole range of critical acquisitions that goes back three five-year plans. Those could not have been made up in the last two years because there are no budgetary allocations to show that that was even attempted.
Why the cutting edge is blunt
ARMOUR is supposed to be the strike arm of the Army. Most of the Indian armour is of Russian origin. India has some 2,300 main battle tanks ( MBT) of which all but 60 are of Russian origin. The latter are the Arjun MBT of which there are plans as of now to manufacture just 124.
The main battle tanks are: 600 T- 90S Bhishmas ( 1,000 to be made indigenously), around 1,900 T- 72M Ajeyas and a few old T- 55s. Some 300 Ajeyas have been upgraded with Israeli Elbit thermal imaging systems but the rest is waiting to be upgraded. But as a 2006 Comptroller and Auditor Generals ( C& AG) report reveals, these numbers may not be telling the whole story.
The army has professed outrage at these articles, though they have been careful not to directly refute them. They seem to think we are questioning their bravery; we are not.
Even today the army will go in if ordered and sacrifice their lives. But they will not be able to deliver the outcome the country desires-- the defeat/destruction of the Pakistan army without taking punishment themselves and possibly opening up the country to serious politico-military hazards. In 1971, the country won a spectacular victory in East Pakistan. But people have forgotten that we lost Chamb.
Remember George S Patton's famous words: "Now I want you to remember that no bastard won a war by dying for his country. he won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his..."
The other army counter to these articles is to claim that these are based on old C&AG reports. That may be true, but what I have shown is that there is a trend of "under-performance" (that's actually too mild a word) in a whole range of critical acquisitions that goes back three five-year plans. Those could not have been made up in the last two years because there are no budgetary allocations to show that that was even attempted.
Why the cutting edge is blunt
ARMOUR is supposed to be the strike arm of the Army. Most of the Indian armour is of Russian origin. India has some 2,300 main battle tanks ( MBT) of which all but 60 are of Russian origin. The latter are the Arjun MBT of which there are plans as of now to manufacture just 124.
The main battle tanks are: 600 T- 90S Bhishmas ( 1,000 to be made indigenously), around 1,900 T- 72M Ajeyas and a few old T- 55s. Some 300 Ajeyas have been upgraded with Israeli Elbit thermal imaging systems but the rest is waiting to be upgraded. But as a 2006 Comptroller and Auditor Generals ( C& AG) report reveals, these numbers may not be telling the whole story.
India faces a powerful Pakistani fleet with 500 Al Khalids and 320 Al Zarrar, 450 Chinese Type 81 upgrade and 570 Ukrainian T80 UD. Both sides therefore possess, or in Indias case plan to have some 600 third generation tanks — T- 90s and T- 80UD — that will at least have a chance of survival in a modern battlefield.
China with some 800 third generation and 1,800 second generation tanks is not even factored into the Indian equation.
In the wake of the first Gulf War, all countries decided that they needed to seriously upgrade their tank fleets given the dismal performance of the then Iraqi President Saddam Husseins T- 72s against the US M1A1 tanks. The Army decided to phase out 700 of its T- 55 tanks and decommission 1,200 of the Vijayantas. These would have been replaced by 1,380 T- 72Ms of which 580 would be of an upgraded quality by 2002.
According to the C& AG, the heavy vehicles factory ( HVF) could only deliver 1,108 tanks and that too, by the end of 2005. The shortfall in the regiments ( each has a brick of 55 tanks) was of the order of four regiments and 24 tanks, in addition to a five- year delay. T HE C& AG also noted that the upgraded version of the T- 72 was to have a better engine and some seven additional subsystems.
However, only three subsystems were fitted as of March 2005 and as for the engine, it was uprated to 1,000HP after a decade- old development work and was still on trial.The issue was neither the delay nor the upgrade, but the fact that “ these tanks had serious quality problems” at the hands of the Army.
Indeed, the Army refused to accept the tanks till the HVF got its act together. The quality problems were the result of improper transfer of technology from Russia, as well as poor quality production of its sub- assemblies by ordnance factories and private vendors.
The same problems were noted when the Army went in for the T- 90S contract. India imported 124 off- the- shelf tanks and 186 were to be assembled from the imported kits. The HVF was supposed to provide these assembled tanks by March 2005, but according to the C& AG, it only supplied 85.
The story of the production of the Arjun tank is similar. The government gave green signal for acquisition of 124 tanks in 2000 to be made by 2006.However, only nine tanks could be delivered by March 2005 and it is believed that the order is yet to be fulfilled.
Even though the Combat Vehicles Research and Development establishment is a neighbour of the HVF in Avadi, the problem was in transfer of technology and technical problems with the subassemblies.
As it is, the tank failed its winter trials in 2007 and then the summer trials in 2008, prompting minister of state for defence production Rao Inderjit Singh to suspect “ sabotage. When in doubt, blame the foreign hand.
In June this year, a refurbished version of the tank will have another face off trial with the T90S. Let's see what happens.
This article was published in Mail Today January 25,2009
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