It
is a mystery why we don’t imitate the Chinese: act nice, talk peace, trade and
challenge China when it steps on our toes
Gen.
Bikram Singh, Chief of the Army Staff, is bringing in as his Principal Staff
Officers (PSOs) colleagues from his time at the Eastern Command in Kolkata, and
others who have served with and under him. This is normal and reasonable
practice because a COAS is ultimately judged by what he accomplishes, and who
best to advise him and implement his agenda than the people he has confidence
in.
Gen.
Bikram Singh’s tenure began under a cloud — the Army he leads is divided over
whether or not he deserves his post and how much favouritism, stratagem and
intrigue by his predecessors, Gen. J.J. Singh and Gen. Deepak Kapoor, and a
complicit government, played a part in his elevation. The controversy
surrounding his appointment because of their alleged “plan of succession” is
history, but the bad blood it may have created should not lead to the
discarding of the good
schemes former Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh initiated, the most notable being the
Army’s China thrust. Gen. Bikram Singh would be well advised to push that slant
as well. It is a particularly awful habit the Armed Services have fallen into,
of allowing every new Chief of Staff to inaugurate and nurse his own pet
projects. Whatever Gen. Bikram Singh’s take on his predecessor’s focus,
unfortunately, the desperately needed China tilt is already endangered.
With the government instructing the three service chiefs to come up with
a “joint plan” to deal with the China threat, the concept of the Mountain
Strike Corps (MSC) is possibly being readied for burial.
While
a joint military plan to counter China militarily is an imperative, shelving
the embryonic idea of a Mountain Strike Corps does not make any sense unless
that old sentiment from Jawaharlal Nehru’s days is returning, this time dressed
up by the China Study Group (CSG) as a pragmatic posture. Since the 1970s, the
CSG has been the fount of advice resulting in pusillanimous actions and
policies related to our northern neighbour. And it is now proposing that India
and China rise peacefully together. Admirable outlook, except we better also
have a strike capability to hit back in case they pick a fight.
It is
a mystery why we don’t imitate the Chinese — act nice, talk peace, trade as
much as the traffic can bear, build up the military for offensive action and challenge
China when it steps on our toes. If
the overarching concern with not provoking China — India’s main threat,
economic competitor, geopolitical rival and military adversary — is to take
precedence over acquiring strike forces, then we might as well mentally prepare
ourselves for a pummeling.
An
Army capability to attack Chinese targets within Tibet has been sorely missing
from the start. As envisaged, the MSC comprises several brigades, each able,
after being detached from the main force, of mounting independent offensive
action across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the Tibetan plateau, a
capability required to keep the massed Chinese group armies honest. These
brigades are conceived as having integral logistics, heli-lift and attack
helicopters under their command. Some nine Indian Army divisions are at present
arrayed defensively in the eastern sector, and one and half divisions each in
the northern and central sectors with an armoured brigade as a divisional
component in both cases (to debouch from the Demchok Triangle and the northern
Sikkim plains respectively). These two brigades worth of T-72 tanks divided
between the central and northern sectors is a daunting mobile military force
and it may be tested soon. The
pre-positioned stock of shells for the tank guns in those areas cannot last
more than a couple of days and recent military field intelligence suggests that
the Chinese may be concentrating on an incursion into northeastern Sikkim in
the next few months. If logistics support is strengthened, and to this mix is
added the independently-operable brigades with T-90 tanks aided by the full
aviation complement of the MSC for deployment anywhere along the 4,700 km
border and able to affect a breach or two for meaningful ingress into Tibet, then
the People’s Liberation Army of China will have reason to sweat a bit.
Is
such an option to be left to the mercy of a military talk-shop? One thing is
certain, had Gen. Bikram Singh stood firmly behind the MSC concept, it is
unlikely the defence ministry, even less the finance ministry, would have
written finis to it. A.K. Antony’s defence ministry is, like the rest of the
Manmohan Singh caboodle, known for indecision and inaction. That finance
ministry has suddenly asserted its fiduciary responsibility and questioned
investment in the MSC based on its belief that China poses no threat and that
even if it does the threat won’t last long into the future, is laughable.
Could
it be that Gen. Bikram Singh is influenced by one of his benefactors, Gen. J.J.
Singh who, as governor of Arunachal Pradesh, put out that the Indian Army needs
to concentrate its efforts on the western front, while the government goes
about cultivating China’s friendship? Gen. J.J. Singh, rather than ensuring
that the road and other infrastructure projects are speeded up on the border
east of the Kameng sector where Army forward posts are still serviced by mule
packs, is busy shooting off his mouth. It is the sort of unenlightened advice
that needs to be trashed publicly, except, tragically, it seems to be in sync
with this government’s thinking.
As
it is, the Manmohan Singh regime has tried to marginalise the Army by making
the Navy and the Air Force the main elements in tackling the Chinese threat. In
war, the Navy should interdict China’s energy and trade traffic transiting the
Indian Ocean. But in short, intense conflicts, when territory will be at stake,
naval actions cannot replace a land attack option, which will be at a premium
for a riposte for immediate effect. In this context, jettisoning the MSC is to
not take the fight to the Chinese. Gen. Bikram Singh would be responsible for
ditching a potential capability that any self-respecting Army would want to
have.
The views expressed and Information provided
by the author are his own and left to public to judge and rationalise for
themselves.
[Published
as "Delhi in a China daze, again. Beware!" on August 30, 2012 in the
'Asian Age'
at www.asianage.com/columnists/delhi-china-daze-again-beware-869 and
in the 'Deccan Chronicle'
sir, I read the story somewhere. this government will do the same in some time....
ReplyDeleteOnce Stalin was giving a speech in which he stated that in the past year in the USSR there had been a 30% increase in steel production, 15% increase in milk, 20% increase in grain harvest, etc. At the end of the speech he asked if there were any questions. One person, Ivan Ivanovich, raised his hand. Stalin asked: “what is your question?”
Ivan Ivanovich then said: “Excuse me Comrade Stalin, but I think there must be some mistake, I work in the agricultural sector and there was no increase in milk or grain output as you said rather there was a shortfall. How could this be?”
Stalin then looked at his watch and said: “sorry but time is up and I have to be at another meeting.”
The next year Stalin is at the same place and giving a speech in which he is again extolling the various advances that the Soviet Union is making on many fronts. After his speech he again asks if there are any questions. One person raises his hand and Stalin asks: “what is your question?”
To which the person replied: “where is Ivan Ivanovich?”