HAS INDIA BECOME A SOFT STATE ?
The train from Beijing to Tibet reaches strategically sensitive heights. Packed with local Chinese and a handful of foreigners, it weaves its way through breathtaking unexplored territory, even as hacks like us stare out of the windows for a glimpse of military movement. We are not disappointed. With this railway line and a network of excellent roads extending almost till the Indian border, China has increased its capacity to move troops and materiel to the Line of Actual Control in 25 days as against the earlier six months.
China’s ongoing two-month-long Stride-2009 exercises involving over 50,000 soldiers from four major regional commands demonstrate its capability to mobilise large forces to Tibet using civilian air and rail links as well. China has billed these exercises as the PLA’s extended force projection capability. The PLA’s Rapid Reaction Forces, known locally as Resolving Emergency Mobile Combat Forces, are also capable of a 24-48-hour response to emergencies. Analysts said this implies that Beijing is capable of moving up to four divisions, or over 200,000 troops, swiftly to the Indian border if the need arises either in response to a threat or, in all likelihood, to flaunt power. The Chinese also have nine airfields in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, including four at Lhasa to facilitate the PLA’s rapid mobilisation.
Talk in New Delhi of the “China threat” — which visibly agitates Beijing — has resurfaced once again, with the 13th round of discussions on the border issue between Special Representatives M.K. Narayanan and Dai Bingguo registering little movement forward. A Chinese media offensive questioning Indian policy towards China has further alarmed India’s strategic community, with the military stepping in to suggest that the wisest course would be to focus on “quality” improvement in operational capability, instead of erring, as always, on the side of numbers.
Retired Indian Navy [IN] Chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta clarified his earlier remarks by telling Covert that he had at no stage suggested that India could not confront China, but had at a lecture pointed out that since “in both conventional and non-conventional military terms Delhi cannot match Beijing force-for-force” Indian strategy should focus on “lean and mean” capacity building. “We can, for instance, have far better ships than the Chinese have and technologically beat them at their own game,” Admiral Mehta added.
There is no sense of this realisation in India’s political establishment that remains in a state of denial over China. From occasional alarmist statements to deliberate efforts to underplay the situation to being downright supine, the Government has failed miserably in developing a strategic line of action in keeping with the fast pace of military development across India’s borders. Former Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Vijay Oberoi said it was unfortunate that “policymakers cannot take hard decisions, and are responsible for the perception that we are a soft state and so can succumb to pressure”.
COL. R. HARIHARAN from the Chennai Centre of China Studies said that most of India’s neighbours perceive it as a “soft state”. Perception is what makes beliefs and they come from how India conducts itself both internally and externally. “Most of our security related problems — inability to develop a long-term national vision, inability to use time as a resource, unresolved land and maritime border disputes, mending relations with neighbours, effectively handling homegrown insurgencies — in short failure to walk the talk — has contributed to this negative image,” according to Hariharan who played an active role with the Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s.
Three “moments” to exhibit this resolve for hard action that were not seized by the Government in recent years are acknowledged by the military and strategic establishment as, not striking Pakistani assets during Kargil, not launching punitive strikes against Islamabad after the December 2001 Parliament terror attack and again after last year’s Mumbai terror attacks.
Former Deputy National Security Advisor Satish Chandra said that just after the Kargil occupation became known there was a strong view in the NDA Government that the best option to avoid multiple casualties in trying to re-occupy the heights would be to cross the border and seize territory that could then be traded for a Pakistani pullout from the occupied heights. The then Army Chief, General Ved Prakash Malik reportedly opposed this, maintaining that the Army was neither equipped nor ready for what could erupt into a full-fledged war. He was backed by the two other Service Chiefs, who were equally full of trepidation over the consequences of extending the theatre of conflict.
The second opportunity for hard action came with the attack on Parliament, but after mounting the longest ever mobilisation of its armed forces in December 2001 lasting ten months, the NDA Government withdrew its troops without either firing a single shot or, for that matter, deterring Pakistan in any noteworthy manner. Most Army officers share the view of former Army Chief Gen. S. Padmanabhan, who claimed in an interview at the time that a political decision to go to war could have resulted in significant military gains in January 2002 when the Pakistani military was still to mobilise. He did not agree with the view that at least limited air strikes on specific targets in Pakistan should have been carried out, saying, “If you really want to punish someone for something very terrible he has done, you smash him. You destroy his weapons and capture his territory.” But he stressed that there had to be a policy, a mandate decreed by the political rulers. The third opportunity, of course, was after the Mumbai attacks when the military was keen to go across the border and “hit any target to show that such a strike on a civilian target was not to be tolerated”. But the Government balked at the prospect and the “moment” passed. Chandra tersely pointed out that Pakistan and the international community are well aware that India will not take decisive military action, meekly accepting “whatever comes its way as we blunder along from one disaster to another”.
“India’s problem is that we have never imposed a price on any nation for action taken against us,” Chandra said. “We keep silent and accept whatever comes our way. Whenever there is the question of national interest being at stake, Governments must be prepared to take the consequences, and not emerge as the soft state we have become,” he added.
A CASE FOR strategic action is China, according to experts, but the Government has done little to contain or counter the spread of Chinese influence in the region. China’s “string of pearls”, as US analysts describe it, of stitching up military, diplomatic and economic alliances with all of India’s neighbours like Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and even the Maldives is deftly placing a strategic garrotte around it.
China is developing Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port in the south of the island republic, which will give it access to the Indian Ocean Region [IOR], an area of strategic influence it is seeking to dominate by developing the PLA Navy [PLAN] into a formidable blue water force, with task forces spearheaded by nuclear powered ballistic submarines. Interestingly, Sri Lanka first offered this project to India, but the usual New Delhi vacillation made it turn to China.
China also supplied the Sri Lankan military a varied range of armaments, including anti-aircraft guns, in its fight against the Tamil Tiger rebels, earning in the process Colombo’s undying gratitude for its “steadfast support”. Sri Lankan defence secretary and President Mahinda Rajapakse’s brother, Gotabaya Rajapakse told the Indian authorities, including National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan in Delhi that “security compulsions” were driving Colombo to seek military equipment from China, Pakistan and other suppliers.
China remains a long standing military and nuclear ally of Pakistan and has extended nuclear energy pacts with Bangladesh, which, in turn, has granted Beijing exploration rights for developing its coal and natural gas fields. China’s economic and diplomatic footprint is also expanding incrementally across Nepal, shifting its support from the deposed King to the Maoists, unlike India that remained on shaky ground throughout the transition of the Himalayan kingdom into a republic. Its palpable presence is in evidence in Myanmar, helping it to modernise its naval bases at Akyab, the Cocos Islands, Hainggyi, Khaukphyu, Kyun, Mergui and Zadetkyi, by building radar, refit and refuelling facilities capable of, eventually, supporting Chinese submarine operations in the Andaman Sea and the IOR.
China has also reportedly established a signals intelligence [SIGINT] facility on the Cocos Islands, 30 nautical miles from the Andamans, reportedly to monitor Indian missile test firings from the eastern Orissa coast: an activity that has proliferated since its 1998 nuclear tests. In August 2008 Indian security officials were alarmed by reports of China’s plans to “upgrade” communication and helipad facilities on the Cocos Islands as part of what it believes is Beijing’s strategy of “encircling” its neighbouring nuclear rival. Official military sources in Delhi said the apprehensions follow the unpublicised 25 June 2008 visit to the Cocos, contiguous to India’s Andaman island territory in the Bay of Bengal, by a Chinese naval delegation led by Col. Chi Ziong Feng.
IN A TANDEM effort to “ring” India, nuclear rival and Beijing-ally Pakistan has also supplied Myanmar with several shiploads of ordnance and military hardware over the past decade. Pakistan also trains Myanmar’s soldiers to operate Chinese tanks, fighter aircraft and artillery, while its officers attend Pakistani defence training institutions. Since 2001 a permanent Pakistan defence attaché has also been posted at Yangon.
Beijing, meanwhile, has made clear to India its heightened sensitivities about Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh, losing no opportunity to attack Delhi through the official and non-official channels on these prickly issues. It doggedly opposed an Asian Development Bank loan to India because a portion of it was for the development of Arunachal Pradesh, refused to give visas to a visiting delegation of Indian officials because it included an official from the “disputed territory”. The Chinese media too has been particularly critical of India recently, with several officially-sponsore d articles questioning its intent vis-à-vis Beijing, a criticism triggered by Delhi clinching a civilian nuclear deal with the US and becoming Washington’s close strategic and military ally.
Other possible future events that could have a serious and unpredictable impact on Indian national security calculations include internal developments in China, in particular those relating to the deification of the next Dalai Lama. Similar changes could result from any rapid moves towards military engagement between the US, Japan and India, which appear to be growing, albeit have slowed somewhat under the Obama administration.
Simmering Sino-Indian political, diplomatic and military tensions had also proliferated over the past two years, with the number of PLA incursions along the bilaterally disputed 4,057 km long Line of Actual Control increasing to 203 in 2008 from 170 the previous year, many of them adjoining “disputed” Arunachal Pradesh. Military officers said, in the endless cat-and-mouse game China was calculatedly “testing” India’s response to their transgressions, confident that they controlled the levers of escalation.
Militarily, India has only just started responding to the Chinese, even though, as Lt. Gen. Oberoi said, the Army has been urging New Delhi to develop its infrastructure for enhanced accessibility. After decades of neglect and diffidence, India has started constructing roads, upgrading and constructing new airstrips as well as numerous bridges to keep pace with the Chinese infrastructure. However, the military is clear that it will be at least 15 years before India can hope to catch up with China on this. Army units deployed in the region since the 1962 war remain dependent on animal transport and airdrops for supplies. Soldiers have to trek for 15 days to reach posts, as compared to China where soldiers are serviced by all weather roads.
Delhi has also cleared the raising of two Army divisions, or around 50,000 troops, for the Chinese frontier and begun stationing two Sukhoi 30 MK1 squadrons or around 36 fighter aircraft at Tezpur. The runway at Tezpur — a MiG 21 base till recently — has been renovated alongside an infrastructure upgrade to house the “air dominance” Su 30 MKIs capable of striking targets deep inside China.
TIMIDITY AND A sense of denial plague Indian decision-making, but apart from this, the military is facing systemic problems that prevent it from adopting a sustained approach to threats from across the borders. Service rivalries, ambiguous policies and vacillation in decision making are some of the roadblocks preventing India’s military modernisation and strategic nimbleness.
Defence Minister A.K. Antony recently lamented the “shameful and dangerous” situation in which the country was impelled to import 70% of its military requirements, despite repeated governmental declarations of becoming self-reliant. “We had set up the goal of self reliance 50 years ago. But it is unfortunate that we are importing 70% of our defence equipment. It is both shameful and dangerous,” he told Parliament. However, Antony is as much responsible for this as are his predecessors in office. Decisions are not taken, or delayed inordinately, defence officers pointed out. “There are many shortages, procurements are cancelled, our tanks are still without night vision equipment, negotiations for Admiral Gorshkov have still not been concluded, the aircraft carrier out of dry dock does not have any aircraft to fly,” Lt. Gen. Oberoi said, adding that the “defence sector has been badly neglected, with the Government unable to decide between the ‘butter’ and the ‘gun’.”
Admiral Mehta wondered at the tendency to ban defence companies at the drop of a hat, and mostly on complaints filed by rivals in the business. He said that conglomerates had been banned from supplying much needed weaponry to India for flimsy reasons, resulting in major losses to the country. He cited the instance of the HDW submarine saying that the purchase in the 1980s was part of a larger agreement to manufacture two submarines indigenously, and “set up a line”. He said that the decision to blacklist HDW set the industry back by over 15 years and “we are still struggling to start a line, being way behind other countries”.
“Allocation of money [for defence] has never been a problem,” Antony declared breezily. Rather, the issue has been the timely and judicious utilisation of the money allocated, he added in an ironic and unbelievably naïve censure of his own performance and inadequacy as the Defence Minister, now for a second term. In financial year 2008-09 the Ministry Of Defence [MoD] returned Rs 7,000 cr of the Rs 48,000 cr earmarked for capital or acquisition expenditure to the Central exchequer due to delayed decision making.
The Defence Minister’s five-year operational directive is invariably outdated — the last one was issued in 2002 after a 15-year hiatus and a fresh one is overdue. The appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff [CDS] has been stymied by inter-service turf wars as well as bureaucratic and political machinations. The CDS was to function as a crucial “interface” between the defence, civilian and political establishments to help reorder archaic procurement and operational procedures.
As a compromise the Government created the “watered down” Integrated Defence Staff [IDS] in October 2001, for greater “synergy” between the Services and the MoD. The strategic force command [SFC], formalised earlier this year, India’s only tri-service command on the Andaman and Nicobar island-territory off the east coast, and the Defence Intelligence Agency [DIA], were all to come under the CDS. The IDS now reports to the Chief of Staff Committee [CoSC] that has been reduced to just a “clearing house” for individual service requirements, with no authority over final procurements or asset commitments in war. Corruption and transparency in defence procurement remains an issue. As Col. Hariharan pointed out, “Defence procurement should be more transparent. There is no accountability for delays in procurement or losses due to poor staff work.”
AS FAR AS national security is concerned, we should not hand over the fate of decision making exclusively to the domain of babudom and politicians. Defence chiefs should have hands on accountability to national security decisions. After all, how many heads have rolled for Kargil except for middle level Army officers? Aggravating matters is the generalist, civilian-dominated MoD that has no stakes in developing India’s military capability in consonance with national security requirements. It remains a disinterested overseer and stern book-keeper with complete financial powers but little operational responsibility. Differences between the military and the bureaucracy continue to affect decision-making, with even the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission for the defence services being watered down by the Finance Ministry. The discrimination in status as well as pay with civil servants had the defence chiefs “fighting a long battle from behind”, and although some issues have been addressed, the anger and resentment remain. Col. Hariharan pointed out that several suggestions had been made by the military to overcome the present shortage of soldiers and officers, to boost morale and to attract new talent to the services. “But vested interests in babudom are benefiting from the existing system and are blocking changes in the status quo. I don’t expect any radical change in our attitude of using the soldiers as karipatta, use and throw,” he regretted. Simple proposals for a war museum and a cenotaph for the unknown soldier remain in cold storage, an indicator of bureaucratic stubbornness.
Lt. Gen. Oberoi pointed out that neither the political leaders concerned nor the bureaucracy give two hoots about national security. “Put a policeman on the top and he can only send evidence to Pakistan,” he said with a laugh. Ambassador Chandra said, “Our problem is that we have never imposed a price on any nation for action taken against us, we keep silent and accept whatever comes our way. When there is the question of India’s interests being at stake, Governments must be prepared to take the consequences”
