Getting to the meat of the matter

Wrapping up a three-day visit to India in January, US President Barack Obama observed, “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.” 

He added that it was of utmost importance that Indians understood that every person had “the right to practise their faith how they choose or to practise no faith at all and to do so free from persecution.” 

Obama’s warning comes to mind as the peculiar drama of meat bans plays itself out across the country. 

There can be little doubt that this is being seen as part of the anti-Muslim project of the extremist elements of the Sangh Parivar. 

Ideology 

This is yet another manifestation of the belief among many in the Parivar that Narendra Modi’s election triumph victory was a victory for their pernicious ideology and not a consequence of the failure of the UPA II in delivering economic growth to the country. 

From the time the Modi government took office, there has been a sharp uptick in communal violence accompanied by a cacophony of declarations from Right-wing groups, promoting projects like ghar wapsi and banning beef. 

Modi himself has distanced himself from such views, or, has chosen to keep silent. 

He has sought to position himself as a development- oriented prime minister and has, in his speeches, focused on social issues. 

Earlier this year, speaking at an event organised by New Delhi’s Christian community, Modi emphatically declared, “We cannot accept violence against any religion”. 

In blunt terms, the mandate that Modi has got was for economic growth and good governance. 

At a time when people are awaiting a transformation of the economy and its direct impact on their personal lives they are bemused by the spectacle of our municipal and state governments getting involved in banning meat and policing abattoirs to prevent the eating of beef. 

At one level it is being used as a tool of political mobilisation, at another it is to distract the electorate from the inability of the governments, state and local, to come to grips with their substantive challenges. 

Modi himself should be aware that his government in New Delhi, too, is facing the test of credibility with regard to its tall electoral promises and its performance. 

People do not expect miracles to happen overnight and will not, like media commentators, switch to an attack mode overnight. 

However, they do expect that the government gets down to work on the real issues of the day instead of chasing the will o’ the wisp. 

Diversity 

In a diverse country like India, sectarian peace is something that must be prized. 

One way to maintain it is to allow communities to live with their customs and traditions and define their own pace of change. 

This is the premise of Indian secularism which has ensured that India’s 170 million Muslim population has been remarkably peaceable despite the pulls of extremism in the other parts of the Islamic world. 

But now Sangh Parivar hotheads appear determined to push the Muslim community to the margins. 

Given the numbers, that is simply not a viable project and will instead result in a rendering of the country’s social and political fabric. 

Hindu faith 

Actually, animal sacrifice is not alien to the Hindu faith as anyone who has travelled to Nepal during dussehra knows and visit any Puja pandal during the season you will find a great deal of excellent non-vegetarian fare. 

There are groups who tend to be vegetarians. 

But by no means can they be seen as representatives of the Hindu faith. 

Moreover, at what point does the state decide that you can eat this and that, or wear this or that. 

Could the Mumbai municipality decide that men and women must cover their heads? How different is it from khaps which ban jeans and cellphones for women? 

The time has come for the BJP to be more forthright in keeping its atavistic Parivar elements in line. 

The agenda is development and its mandate is for economic growth and good governance. If the BJP does not understand this, it will pay the price for it the next time elections come around. 

Unfortunately, that will be a messy process, and the country would have lost another five years that it cannot afford to lose. 

Mail Today September 13, 2015

Tightening belts in China's military

For the past week, observers of China have been expecting Beijing to announce a series of reforms to drastically restructure and reshape the People’s Liberation Army. The step was expected to follow the September 3 announcement during the massive military parade in Beijing that the force would cut 3,00,000 personnel and bring its force down to 2 million.

So far this has not happened, but it is a question of when, rather than if. Beijing’s imperatives for reform are obvious — if it wants to cope with an adversary like the US, it needs to change its orthodox, land-oriented military into a flexible and agile force which can be used on to defend the country’s borders, but also for missions afar.

According to the Chinese media and commentators, the major restructuring would be from top to bottom. At the very top, the four key departments — general staff, general political, general logistics and general armaments — would be reorganised into the general political, logistics and armaments departments which would now report to the general staff department, which would, in turn, be supervised by the all-powerful Central Military Commission which is chaired by President Xi Jinping. A separate reporting line would, for the first time, have the new general staff department report to the Ministry of Defence as well.

The current division of the PLA into seven military regions, as well as the Air Force and the Navy would give way to four integrated military regions — the south-west, south-east, north-east and north-west strategic zones. The size of the Army and Air Force would be drastically reduced and that of the Navy marginally. There would be a new 50,000 strong space force and all this is not counting the 2nd Artillery which handles China’s nuclear and conventional missile forces. According to one estimate, the eventual goal could well be a PLA that would be just about a million strong, in addition to having another million strong paramilitary and internal security troops. So, in terms of the PLA army, navy and air force components, it would compare with the 1.3-million-strong US forces.

The Chinese now accept that large numbers are a liability for the modern military because they consume vast resources in maintaining and paying them. Smaller, highly mobile and technologically capable forces are the order of the day.

Xi has already taken the first steps in reform by placing key personnel in important positions of authority in the PLA. More important, he has initiated a massive crackdown on corruption in the force where positions were sold to the highest bidder. Two former Vice-Chairmen of the CMC — Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong — have been arrested, along with scores of senior officers, for corruption.

In his speeches, Xi has emphasised the need for the military to remain under the command of the party, as well as enhance its professional skills through hard and realistic training. “We must ensure that our troops are ready when called upon, that they are fully capable of fighting, and that they must win every war” is a theme he has repeated in many speeches.

Soon after taking over, in December 2012, the CMC passed its “Ten Regulations on Improving the Work Style of the PLA” which formally banned liquor in PLA functions, forbade the holding of big banquets and called on the PLA brass to adopt a simple style in their inspection tours. Subsequently, in April 2013, new instructions were issued ordering the PLA and People’s Armed Police generals and senior officers to spend two weeks in the frontline as enlisted soldiers every third or fourth year, depending on their rank.

The theme of reform came out through the decisions of the Third Plenum in 2013 as well. The Plenum communique noted that the Communist Party would put in whatever resources that were required to create a modern military, but in turn the military leadership were urged to enhance their innovation capacity and improve their military and professional skills and training and develop a war-winning force.

From that time onwards, talk of drastic military reform has swirled around Beijing. Now, after the spectacular military parade of September 3, the first ever to deal with the World War II victory, the chatter has become more insistent.

All this has implications for India which we can ignore at our own peril. Efforts at reforming and restructuring our military remain stuck. Instead of reducing our manpower, we have been steadily increasing it. The current five-year plan, for example, caters for an 80,000-increase. Along with unreformed recruitment and pension procedures, we will end up spending more money in pay, allowances and pensions, than modernising the forces to cope with the rapid technological advances taking place. There were expectations that the current government would take up the task, but it seems to be more focused on acquisitions than the battle-winning issues of restructuring our World War II era armed forces, shaping innovative doctrines for their use, and equipping them to prevail in a high-tech battlefield environment. In any system, communist or democratic, this reform can only be done through political direction. Unfortunately for us, this democracy, at least, seems to be losing out in this contest.

 Mid Day September 15, 2015

Looking Back at the 1965 War, With an Objective Eye

On September 6, 1965, in an effort to stave off military disaster in Jammu & Kashmir, Indian troops crossed the international border near Wagah and lunged towards Lahore on three different lines of advance.
Thus began the second round of the India-Pakistan war, which ended in a stalemate. Pakistan has long celebrated the date as the “Defence Day”, conveniently forgetting that through the year it had been needling India. Beginning with a diversionary attack in Kutch in April, it had stepped up shelling of the Srinagar-Leh Highway, compelling India to twice capture (and return) the heights around Kargil. Then in August 1965, it sent an army of irregulars, or actually regulars who claimed to be Kashmiri freedom fighters, to trigger off an uprising in the Valley. That move, code-named Operation Gibraltar, failed and the coherent Indian response led to the capture of the Haji Pir Pass.


In some panic, because he thought Muzaffarabad was the next target, the Pakistani general commanding the operation, Lt Gen Akhtar Hussain Malik launched a powerful armoured attack on Chamb and advanced towards Akhnur. This Operation Grand Slam would have immediately cut off an entire Indian division in Poonch and Rajauri, and could have led to the cutting of the Jammu-Srinagar highway as well. Fortunately for India, the Pakistani thrust inexplicably stalled for two days and Pakistan changed its commanders. Why they changed a warhorse in midstream is not known, but some argue that it was because Malik was a Qadiani and his replacement Yahya Khan, a protégé of Pakistan Army chief Mohammed Musa, wanted to grab the credit for the victory that never came.
This was because India moved on Lahore and Sialkot. In both instances, the Indian plan was not to capture the cities—that would have required an enormous military commitment. It was to capture strategically significant territory up to the Ichogil Canal and inflict a military defeat on Pakistan. Simultaneously, by reaching the canal which doubled as a well prepared anti-tank obstacle, the Indian move was also aimed at preventing a Pakistani attack on India, since there was no comparable water obstacle on the Indian side.
India’s main military thrust was through the 1 Corps towards Sialkot, which was launched on September 7, a day after the Lahore attack. This formation was given the pride of the Army—1 Armoured division. However, its thrust stalled just 6 km into Pakistan.
On September 6, three divisions had moved towards Lahore, with a view of establishing themselves along the Ichogil canal. The Pakistanis were taken by surprise, but considering the threat to their premier northern city, they rallied quickly. 15 Division actually reached the canal unhindered and the 3 Jat captured Batapore on the outskirts of Lahore by 11.30 that morning. But after waiting for reinforcements, they pulled back to their launch point. The Army had moved without informing the Indian Air Force, as a result when then PAF took to the air, they had a field day in shooting up the Indian forces. 7 Division slugged it out and captured Burki, but the 4 Division moving from Khem Karan ran into Pakistan’s main force, built around its 1 Armoured division which was planning an audacious attack into India.
In the end, defence alone triumphed—the Pakistanis successfully blocked our 1 Corps attack in Sialkot and the XI Corps thrust to Lahore. In turn, India managed to scupper the Pakistani offensive in Khem Karan in the battle of Asal Uttar, which could have got us into trouble, had the well conceived plan been implemented with a modicum of competence.

Saving face
The 1965 war was able to remove some of the blot on the Indian Army’s 1962 performance. But, not everything was hunky dory. There were several instances of units breaking and fleeing in the face of fire. The worst instance was the loss of nerve of the 15 Division Commander Niranjan Prasad who was sacked. Indeed, in assessing the performance of his commanders, Lt Gen Harbakshsh Singh, the chief of the Western command which did most of the fighting, said that the XI Corps performance was  “a sickening repetition of command failures leading the sacrifice of a series of cheap victories.” Of the prestigious 1 Corps, he opined, “With the exception of a few minor successes …the operational performance was virtually a catalogue of lost victories.” (Lt Gen Harbakshsh Singh, War Despatches: Indo-Pak Conflict of 1965 New Delhi, Lancers, 1999). In two key battles, for example, Indian forces captured their objectives—Dograi in Lahore and Phillora in the 1 Corps sector, early in the war, but pusillanimous commanders pulled them back and they had to be recaptured later, well after the attacks had lost their momentum.
On the failure side of the Indian ledger was the poor performance of its air force and intelligence services. The IAF lost an unconscionable number of aircraft on the ground because it did not adequately assess the threat it confronted. It also had a poor idea of the deployments of the Pakistan Air Force at the onset of the conflict. The Indian official history says that “taking an overall view of the air war, it appears clear that neither side won any decisive victory. The IAF and PAF mauled each other, but could not kill. They operated according to no clear-cut, well considered plan or priorities, nor concentrated their resources on close support or counter-air missions …”
On the intelligence front, India failed to anticipate the Kutch incursion, Operations Gibraltar and Grand Slam. As K Subrahmanyam put it, “The Indian Army failed to assess intelligence effectively in respect of construction of aqueducts under the Ichogil canal (that runs from India to Lahore) and on Pakistan covertly raising a second Armoured Division.”
In essence, what mattered in the end was not the martial race or reputation of the division or battalion, but the quality of leadership. By and large at the basic battalion and regimental level the system functioned well, but at the brigade, division and Corps level, it faltered. In great measure this was because of inexperience. The essence of military art is the ability to manoeuvre large bodies of men and equipment to overwhelm the adversary. This requires considerable skill and nerve and, as Napoleon once said, luck. This underscores the importance of realistic training and exercises during peacetime, as well as the quality of military education at all levels.

A stalemate
Who won the war? Popularly it is seen as a stalemate, which was confirmed by the fact that the Tashkent Agreement essentially created a situation of status quo ante as of August 5, the date of the start of Operation Gibraltar. If Harbakshsh Singh bemoaned his lost victories, a Pakistani military analyst, Agha Amin has noted that “The battles fought in the Ravi-Sutlej Corridor are fit to be subject of a Shakespearian comedy of errors. On a more serious note Pakistan Army lost its last chance to force a military solution on the Indians.” http://www.defencejournal.com/2001/dec/ravi.htm
Pakistan failed spectacularly in its gamble to change the situation in Jammu & Kashmir. Indian aims were reactive and modest—to prevent a Pakistani victory and to deter Pakistan from future adventures by teaching it a lesson.  Unfortunately, because of the indecisive showing of its army, it was able to achieve the first goal, but not the second.  That required yet another war in 1971.
The eventual measure of success or failure was the politico-military situation in both countries after the war. Pakistan saw Z A Bhutto, the real architect of the war resign after the Tashkent Agreement and the fatal weakening of the Ayub presidency. It also marked a new phase in East Pakistan’s demand for autonomy which eventually led to the creation of Bangladesh. In India there was political turmoil after Shastri’s death and Indira Gandhi’s succession, but that had nothing to do with the outcome of the war.
If India seems to be tending to rewrite its history to suggest that it won the war of 1965, in Pakistan some voices are being raised to suggest a more realistic assessment of the outcome. http://www.dawn.com/news/1204953
The war came at an interesting conjuncture in the global situation. The Sino-Soviet split had just appeared and the United States was on the verge of initiating its Vietnam commitment. The Chinese conducted their first nuclear test in October 1964, weeks after General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had been ousted.
Pakistan was a member of CENTO and SEATO, but by now it was quite far gone with its Chinese connection. Indeed, it was also responding to Soviet overtures Ayub had visited both Moscow and Beijing in the months leading to the war.

A harsh lesson
India had learnt a harsh lesson that neither NAM, nor the Afro-Asian group would come to its aid. It was, in fact, bi-aligned with the US and the USSR. It was difficult to forget that between 1960-1964, it had staved off starvation with 17 million tons of American food aid, that the 1965 monsoon had failed and the American President Johnson had put New Delhi on a short-tether policy and was dribbling out further aid on a monthly basis.
Given the sinister Chinese moves during the war, it is not clear to what extent Beijing played a role in goading the Pakistanis. This was the first war that saw, what is now a familiar pattern, of Pakistani leaders rushing off to China to seek succour after getting into trouble with India. Ayub carried out a secret visit to Beijing on September 19-20, two days before the ceasefire. The Chinese encouraged him to fight on through a “people’s war” if necessary, but Ayub decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
The Wire  September 6, 2015

China’s Military Came Out on Parade but the Real Action Will be in the Sea

The PLA Navy is the most important and interesting component of China’s military modernisation and we are likely to see more of it than any other service in the years ahead

 

China’s spectacular military parade on Thursday  – the occasion of the 70^th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in World War II – marks the coming of age of the modern Peoples Liberation Army. This was underscored by the announcement President Xi Jinping made that China would cut some 300,000 personnel from its 2.3 million strong  military. For the uninitiated, the cut is not about the country becoming more peace-loving, but about the compulsions that arise from the need for a military that is smaller, more technologically able and mobile.
Japan was only a pretext for the parade, after all a 70^th anniversary is neither here nor there. Its main purpose was to establish Xi as the tallest nationalist leader of China since Mao, and to use anti-Japanese sentiment, which is always high in China, to consolidate his standing. So, predictably,  Xi’s speech was laced with strong anti-Japanese rhetoric.
However, the event also had a subtext – the need to signal to the world that China was fully capable of defending itself against all adversaries, not excluding the global hegemon, the United States.  As the official media noted, 84% of the equipment was being displayed for the first time and all of it had been made indigenously. The scale and  direction of Chinese military development makes it clear that Beijing is determined to establish itself as the regionally dominant player in East Asia in the near term – and a global power by 2049, the 100^th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
Expectations that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would attend, as a gesture of peace towards China, were belied. The star guests were President Vladimir Putin of Russia and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, while India sent its junior foreign minister, General V K. Singh.
There were several foreign military contingents in the parade. India did not send one, probably so as not to give offence to the Japanese. The other problem for India is that its soldiers fought on both sides – that of the Allies which included China, and the Japanese under Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Chinese missiles on display at the September 3, 2015 parade in Beijing (clockwise): the DF-5B, the DF-26, the DF-21D and DF-31A. Credit: TV grab from CCTV via China Daily

The scale of the parade was humongous, with some 12,000 soldiers displaying 500 pieces of hardware and some 200 aircraft participating. It  marked the first public display of the DF-21D – the so-called  “carrier killer” missile which has a range of 1500 kms and travels at 10 times the speed of sound, making it difficult to intercept. On display, too,  was the DF-5B  ICBM with a range of 12,000 km which is believed to possess a Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV). Another significant display was the DF-31A mobile solid-fuelled missiles, emphasising China’s ability to deliver a second strike after absorbing a nuclear first strike. The “Guam killer” DF-26 IRBM was also on display.
Among the other weapons systems were the H-6K bomber, a completely upgraded strategic bomber, the CJ-10 land attack cruise missile, surface to air missiles, airborne early warning and maritime surveillance aircraft, tanks, guns and so on.

An integrated military
According to the consulting firm IHS, which is known for its Janes’ series of defence analytical products, Chinese military spending will double between 2010 and 2020 to reach a figure of $260 billion.
According to the latest (2014) estimates, China’s military budget is $176 billion, behind the $586 billion the US spends. India’s figure is $48 billion.
The cut in forces is only the visible edge of the large reform of the Chinese military that is being envisaged by the Communist Party of China (CPC). Beginning 2013, there have been reports that the Chinese plan to integrate their forces and reorganise their deployment from seven military regions to five. Earlier this year, its Defence White Paper elaborated on the concept of  ‘active defence.’

China’s military regions. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

In the wake of the Third Plenum of the CPC, Senior Colonel Yang Yujun, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defence, told a reporter that modern warfare was characterised by what the Chinese call “informationisation” or IT-led warfare, and therefore, “it is a necessary demand of operations under information conditions on building a joint operation command system.”
Two months later, the defence ministry denied the report and even the Global Times was constrained to note that it had been based on an official briefing. Actually, the Chinese were only denying that the integration process had begun. What they emphasised was that it would be taken up in the course of time. And that is what Senior Colonel Yang had said. One reason for the denial was that the issue had been played  up by the Japanese paper Yomiuri Shimbun which had emphasised that the change could involve the transformation of the PLA from a defence oriented force to one which is more mobile and managed in an integrated fashion.
What the Chinese are doing is part of the international trend, and reflects not only their confidence as a military power, but their intention of playing a larger role beyond their geographic frontiers.
It is significant that the parade took place days before Xi leaves for an official visit to Washington DC and at a time when the US Navy is tracking five Chinese warships sailing in the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast – apparently the first time the PLA Navy (PLAN) has been seen so far up north.

PLA Navy holds the keys
It should be clear by now that the US and China are involved in a strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region. Given that the US has a much more sophisticated military and routinely deploys naval assets close to China because of its historical links with the East Asian region, the going is not easy for Beijing. The challenge China faces has been compounded by its crude assertiveness, based on the fiction of its Nine-Dash Line claim over the South China Sea. China remains wary of  Japan, which has a powerful navy and is a strong economic and industrial power backed by an alliance with the US. Chinese behaviour has spooked countries like the Philippines and Vietnam and allowed the US to make new inroads in the region.
While the equipment on display may be impressive, as was the precision of the parade, questions remain about the quality of the PLA, especially since the Chinese want to bench-mark themselves against the United States. The PLA has little or no experience in combat and remains a traditional continental force for the time being. The same is true of the PLAF – the Chinese air force.
The PLAN is the most important and interesting component of China’s military modernisation and we did not get much of a glimpse of its capacity in the parade. In a few years, the PLAN will be truly a mature force which will have consequences for other powers. Using piracy off the coast of Somalia as a convenient pretext, the PLAN has garnered considerable experience in functioning far from its home bases. This has been manifested by the increased showing of the PLAN in the Indian Ocean region since the beginning of 2014.
In the future, we are likely to see more of PLAN, than any of the other services. And that is where the 300,000 cut come in. It signals the CPC’s intention of focusing on a high-tech mobile military over the traditional manpower-intensive PLA. Of course, this will take time since the military tends to be the most conservative institution in any country and in China the Army has a unique status.

In India, reform still adrift
All these developments have implications for India. Unfortunately, our own trend lines are not very wholesome. Despite brave words, the new government has done little to reform the manpower-intensive Indian Army and shift budgets towards high-tech and mobile forces. Indeed, the biggest problem it has been grappling with – that too, without success – is the issue of pensions for ex-service personnel.
If there has been little effort to pick up the gauntlet of reforming the military and the Ministry of Defence., it’s not for lack of advice. The standing committee on defence in Parliament, the Group of Ministers in 2001 and the Naresh Chandra Committee in 2012 have given all the recommendations that are needed. The problem is that the Modi government seems to lack the understanding of how important it is for the political class to lead the reform process. Instead, it continues to drift with the tide, focusing on low hanging fruit like defence acquisitions rather than tackling the more difficult issues of the relationship between the civilian MoD and the armed forces, the need for the integration of the armed forces so as to enable them to become a more effective, war-winning force. Incidentally, the strategic missiles on display today in Beijing have implications for India’s nuclear posture. Hopefully in that area at least, someone in New Delhi is paying attention.
The Wire  September 3, 2015