Articles in Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers
Kargil: India’s first Televised War
By: DP Ramachandran | Issue: Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers | Date: 17 Jul , 2021
‘Their’s not to reason why’ The Kargil conflict, India’s first televised war, more than anything else, reinstated the Indian Army to its rightful status in the public minds of being the...
Siachen Glacier: Battling on the roof of the world
By: DP Ramachandran | Issue: Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers | Date: 18 Dec , 2018
Pakistanis have always been bad losers. Three successive defeats at the hands of the Indian armed forces in as many decades of their country’s existence did little to alter their ego to try...
The Border War with China
By: DP Ramachandran | Issue: Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers | Date: 13 Dec , 2018
A Grand Army Humiliated It was an uncalled for war forced on an unprepared army by a national leadership which couldn’t have been more naive. Having provoked a powerful neighbour into open...
The Bangladesh War 1971: Indian Army’s finest hour
By: DP Ramachandran | Issue: Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers | Date: 13 Nov , 2018
It had to happen – the political and military absurdity that was East Pakistan was never a viable proposition. No country made of two halves so geographically separated and culturally alienated...
War in the West 1971: Pakistan’s day of reckoning
By: DP Ramachandran | Issue: Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers | Date: 04 Nov , 2018
In all fairness it should be admitted that India had given enough provocation to Pakistan to open the Western Front, and the war. Given the Indian incursions in the East, it would appear...
The war without an end
By: DP Ramachandran | Issue: Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers | Date: 28 Oct , 2018
Insurgency has been independent India’s biggest curse where national integration is concerned. Given the vastness of the land and the remoteness of some of the border states, it wasn’t very...
Indo-Pak War 1965: Stalemate?
By: DP Ramachandran | Issue: Book Excerpt: Empire's First Soldiers | Date: 21 Sep , 2015
To begin with Pakistan had codenamed it ‘Operation Gibraltar’, after the Arab invasion of Spain which began with the capture of the Rock of Gibraltar. It was an ambitious plan conceived by...