Babus block Indian Army’s plans to counter China’s PLA

Saikat Datta & Mayank Aggarwal

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Indian Army’s plans to beef up presence on the Indo-China border have met with fierce resistance from two unexpected quarters — the finance and the environment ministries.

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The finance wing of the defence ministry in consultation with the ministry of finance is not agreeable to spend a whopping Rs12,000 crore to set up a Mountain Strike Corps even as a plan to create an alternate, all-weather route from Siliguri to North Sikkim to rush troops to the Indo-China border has been rejected by the ministry of environment and forests on the grounds that the alignment passes through eco-sensitive areas.

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Left with almost no options, the army headquarters is now planning to move in an independent armoured brigade into North Sikkim to try and maintain some muscle on one of its most sensitive border. According to sources in South Block, which houses the ministry of defence, the army is all set to induct the tank brigade by December 31 this year.

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The proposal to beef up the army’s force on the Indo-China border comes at a time when the US Pentagon has reported that China was training two divisions in high altitude warfare. The idea to raise a dedicated mountain strike corps as a bulwark against China was mooted in the aftermath of the disastrous Operation Parakram, when the Indian army mobilised after the December 13 attack on Parliament.

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At that time, the then army chief, Gen NC Vij, had ordered a comprehensive review of the army’s offensive and defensive posture. Headed by the then Western Army Commander, Lt Gen JJ Singh, the study group had recommended a mountain strike corps to be created for the Indo-China border.

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The study group was unambiguous that a dedicated mountain strike corps is essential to maintain deterrence against the Chinese. “We must have a mountain strike corps in the sector if we need to maintain a strong deterrent posture,” Gen Vij told DNA.

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As army chief he had pushed for a major reorganisation of the military structure to prepare for all exigencies on the Pakistan and China fronts.

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“Ideally, the strike corps should have the full paraphernalia to launch a strike by troops who are already there and fully acclimatised in the high altitude areas. At those heights we need infantry, artillery, logistics and armoured brigades to strike back if someone was to plan a misadventure. Our current force levels are quite inadequate and it takes years to build up a new army corps in the area,” Gen Vij told DNA.

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In fact, army headquarters was at pains to explain to the government that most of the army corps that came up as a reactive measure was too little, and too late. The Sukhna-based 33 Corps (in Darjeeling) came up after the 1962 defeat at the hands of the Chinese and Leh-based 14 Corps came up after the surprise Pakistani intrusions in Kargil.

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The study group looked at the combined threat from Pakistan and China in a future war and concluded that the bulk of the fighting would take place in the high mountains.

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We found that current force position was woeful. Every Corps is supposed to have at least three army divisions and we were already short of 4 divisions. So not only did we feel the need to fill the void but also have a credible deterrent against China,” a senior officer familiar with the secret study told DNA.

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“Our current military strategy against China is of dissuasion. But we need to upgrade it to deterrence for which we need at least two mountain strike corps,” said Brig Gurmeet Singh (Retd), director of the prestigious think-tank, CLAWS.

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But the finance wing of the defence ministry after consultations with the finance ministry shot down the proposal on the grounds that funds were not available for such a massive project.

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This is a double barrel blow to the army’s plans to beef up its strength vis-a-vis China because the proposal to have an alternate route from Siliguri to the border has been opposed by the environment ministry.

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Documents available with DNA show that the army had proposed three alternate routes to Aritar in North Sikkim- one starting from Khunia More in north Bengal, another from Bagrakot and a third from Damdim. The environment ministry has pointed out that at least two routes “will result in irreversible loss of bio-diversity vitality and vigor thereby affecting adversely the entire eco-system.”

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Stuck between environment and financial constraints, the Indian army is still years away from a credible deterrence against an aggressive China.