Pravin Sawhney
It is not enough for India to have a standing military. The political will to stand up to proactive and non-status quo adversaries should also be there. And this requires an approach which both appreciates and dovetails military power.
India’s deteriorating national security found no mention in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s foreign policy thoughts which he shared with the nation’s top diplomats in New Delhi on November 4. He believes that economic growth alone is enough for India’s rise, even if it means unprecedented lows like the April-May Depsang (Ladakh) intrusions by China this year and the November 26, 2008 (26/11) terrorist attack in Mumbai by the Pakistani Army. The Prime Minister should know that his foreign policy doctrine of ‘greater regional cooperation and connectivity’ will remain hollow unless neighbours assess that India can credibly defend its territorial integrity. What good is cooperation with a power which can be kicked from both sides on disputed borders by China and Pakistan?
The Depsang humiliation would not have happened if the Prime Minister had taken China’s announcement in December 2010 that it has a mere 2,000km long border with India, seriously. (According to India’s Ambassador in China, Mr S Jaishankar, the total border is 3,488km long.) The public declaration meant that closed-door border negotiations, which began half-a-century ago with the April 1960 visit of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to New Delhi, were finally over. The last word from Beijing is that it will not accept a border with India in Ladakh (Jammu & Kashmir), and the 2,000km long border, which is 90,000sqkm State of Arunachal Pradesh, under Indian occupation.
Historically and legally, India and China have never had a border in Ladakh. Starting in 1846, when the British added the State of Jammu & Kashmir to the Empire, they had been assiduously urging China to agree to a boundary in Ladakh, which did not happen. The Empire was itself unclear about whether India’s border with China was the far Kuen Lun mountains or the near Karakoram mountains; hence it was agreed that the area between the two formidable ranges remain a no-man’s land which neither side had reasons to trespass. This status quo was maintained until 1959 when both sides, after border skirmishes, started talking about ‘traditions and customs and watershed principle’ in Ladakh as the basis of their border claims.
Interestingly, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was in border talks with Premier Zhou in April 1960 in New Delhi, came out of the room to ask his advisers why they were insisting on Kuen Lun range (which makes Aksai Chin a part of India) as India’s border and not accepting China’s proposition of the Karakoram range as the border. Without any basis, his advisers told him to stick to Kuen Lun as the border, which he did. Premier Zhou also hardened his position saying that China would accept the McMahon line as the de facto and not de jure border in the east, conditional to India accepting Karakoram as the border in the west. The rest, as they say, is history.
Against this backdrop, there are three military implications of China’s December 2010 position. First, by the April-May intrusions this year, China demonstrated its muscle to make India restrict itself to its 1959 Karakoram claim line. Second, China can shift the military-held Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, formed after the 1962 war, further east — should it desire. And third, with no border (but a mere frontier) with India in Ladakh, Chinese forces are free to be in the territory under Pakistan’s occupation in Jammu & Kashmir.
In strategic terms, the Siachen glacier under India’s control is threatened from both sides; and Leh, the capital of Ladakh, faces a two-front war scenario for the first time. In short, if India were to up the ante on the LoC in J&K, Pakistan could in connivance with China immediately threaten north Kashmir.
The 26/11 attacks by Pakistan were another example of successful military coercion. On the morning of November 29, 2008, when the Prime Minister met his three Service chiefs, he was given numerous options. The option of surgical strikes given by the Chief of Air Staff was ruled out as it could have meant an immediate escalation to war. The Chief of Army Staff offered two options: To hit Pakistani posts across the LoC with artillery fire, which would have blown the ceasefire up in smoke. India did not want to be seen as the ceasefire spoiler, as this would not have gone down well with the people of Kashmir.
The other option was a quick ingress by the Indian Army to capture Fort Abbas, which is 10km to 15km from the border in the south desert terrain and held lightly by Pakistani forces. This option had three advantages: First, it could be done in 48 hours by maintaining surprise with combat strength (pivot corps) already available with the Indian Army without further mobilisation. Second, capture of Fort Abbas which is in Pakistan’s Punjab, but faces India’s Rajasthan State, would have embarrassed Pakistan’s Punjabi Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. And three, even if India was to vacate Fort Abbas soon, a firm message would have gone to Pakistan that India could defend its dignity and was not a soft state.
To be sure, once both sides would have started mobilisation, India could have sent word to Pakistan through the United States that it would pull back its forces. While the gamble may or may not have worked, it needed tremendous courage on the part of the Indian leadership, and India would have been labelled an aggressor. In all previous wars — 1947-48, 1965, 1971 (on the western front) and 1999 — Pakistan has always been the aggressor.
Interestingly, after the November 29 meeting, the then National Security adviser told the Army to prepare for the Fort Abbas option. Orders were given within the Army to not cancel leave (which would have alerted Pakistan), but not allow available troops to proceed on leave. After 10 days, the Army was quietly told to stand-down; this was the time when Gen Kayani was challenging India to war.
The inevitable inference regarding the two successful military coercions for India is that it is not enough to have a standing military. The political will to stand up to proactive and non-status quo adversaries should also be there. And this requires a foreign policy which both appreciates and dovetails military power.
(The writer is editor, FORCE newsmagazine, based in Delhi)
Courtesy : The Pioneer