Indian Defence Review

The existing mobilisation plan envisaged the embodiment of both urban and rural units of the Territorial Army (TA) to be effective well before the war began. The process involved sending out call notices, gathering manpower, collecting equipment, giving refresher training to marry men with their arms and movement to their respective areas of operational responsibility. The whole period required for making these units fully effective was anything from four to eight weeks, depending upon the response to embodiment from employers and the Territorials themselves. Even under normal conditions, the response was rather poor.

The most essential TA elements were the air defence units, which were required to be positioned at forward airfields or in radar units well before the start of hostilities to afford protective cover in case of a preemptive strike.

Another aspect of TA that worried the Chief was the alarm that the very announcement of its embodiment would create in the country. It would imply war was in the offing, and this always affected commerce adversely. Internationally, it would afford Pakistan an opportunity to accuse India in world forums of aggeressive intentions.

To circumvent this, the Chief announced a change in its mode of training. The prevalent system was for urban units to carry out norrmal training on weekends and holidays for a minimum three days a month for nine months. Collective training was carried out at the sub-unit level for 36 to 60 days, depending upon the state of training of each unit, including a camp of eight to 14 days duration. The idea of sparing their employees for about two weeks was not altogether attractive to employers. In the case of provincial units, training was organised in camps of two months’ duration once a year. Timings were staggered to suit the local farm cropping pattern.

The system did not meet the requirements of surreptitious embodiment. To do this in a smooth and orderly manner without attracting attention, it was decided that as an experimental measure all TA units should hold their annual training camps for three weeks from 1 September. This was ostensibly done to try out the contemplated change in policy. The Director of TA issued a directive on the new procedure for trial and comment. There were a few representations from those charged with implementing it, but nevertheless the changed policy was pushed through.

In the event, war did not come till the beginning of December. To cover the period from 22 September to the day of embodiment, sometime in the third week of November, the training camps were extended to overcome the shortcomings noticed. Thus, when war broke out, a fully effective Territorial Army was already in the field. The units were gradually moved closer to their respective areas of responsibility from the training camps and were in battle positions when Yahya Khan struck.

To give flexibility to operational plans and provide options in their execution, it is essential that a network of roads, with adequate laterals for a quick build-up and switchover, should be available near the intended lines of thrust. The western theatre was well served with a road system built under the strategic roads programme initiated in the 1960s, but this was not the case in the east, especially in the underdeveloped states of Meghalaya and Tripura. Since roadmaking needs time, work was started on new networks as well as to improve existing roads in that region.

The Border Road Task Force, assisted where possible by central and state roadbuilding agencies, was put on the job. Built under a crash programme, essential roads were ready in time. But this was not the case with forward airfields. It was soon realised that the field at Kumbigram could not fully cover operations in depth in Bangladesh. A decision was therefore taken to build a new air field somewhere in depth near Agartala, but despite the best efforts of the construction agencies the monsoon-soaked paddy fields did not dry in time to permit construction as planned, and this field had not become operational when the war began.

Along with the lack of a proper road and rail system, the eastern theatre lacked the requisite administrative infrastructure in the way of accommodation and communication facilities. This hampered an administrative build-up as no meaningful stocking could proceed without covered accommodation. To dump supplies in the open in that rainsoaked region would have been suicidal.

Taking a cue from the experience of the Fourteenth Army in World War II, a programme for the construction of huts was pushed through, and these were ready to store material when the stocking programme got under way. Similarly, new telegraph routes were laid, some old ones rerouted, and others taken over from the civil authorities so that before the start of hostilities the communication network was fully operative.

Our mobilisation plan provided for raising communication zone administrative units on the approach of war. This system was a legacy of British concepts, when wars were long and allowed enough time for a build-up of a nation’s war potential. It was entirely unsuited for a short war. Such units are really required well before the start of hostilities so that in the stage of building up the administrative infrastructure they can make a useful contribution. In 1971, these units actually came into being only a month or so before Pakistan struck, and well after the completion of the build-up. As a result they made very little contribution to the war effort, except perhaps in winding up its aftermath.

Such raisings at short notice do not serve the purpose of a short war. On the other hand, they prove harmful. Their manpower has to be found by milking existing units. Fresh recruitment for the purpose at such a late stage would be meaningless. Milking results in the deterioration of the fighting efficiency of existing units, and the hurriedly raised new units fare no better. In fact, all the directors of administrative service grumbled at this arrangement. Meanwhile, the commands concerned had contrived to raise ad hoc organisations to meet the contingency.

A major task in the preparatory stage was moving strike forces from the hinterland to their respective areas of responsibility. Apart from the holding troops, most of the reserve formations, including l Armoured Division, were located in the interior in farflung places like Jhansi, Babina, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The constraints on their movement were threefold. Firstly, there was the question of security. Once word of their movement leaked out—and it was difficult to conceal such a largescale operation—this would not only alert Pakistan and invite international pressures but would also spread a war scare among our people. These considerations apart, it was felt that if troops remained in their concentration areas too long, the pattern of their deployment would give away the general intentions of our operational plans.

It would therefore have been preferable to move our troops as late as possibly. But then Yahya Khan was almost daily threatening India with war in his drunken bouts,1 and the chances of his making a preemptive attack could not be ruled out. The location of the Indian cantonments and the availability of accommodation did not permit housing sufficient troops for deployment in such a defensive posture as to hold a Pakistani preemptive attack along the likely thrust lines and also provide a strong cover to allow concentration of troops from the hinterland. This entailed the movement of some formations soon after the monsoon.

The second constraint was the physical movement itself. It was calculated that if normal passenger and commercial traffic was not to be disturbed it would take a good six to eight weeks to complete our concentrations. This process could be accelerated by suspending civil traffic, but this was not acceptable for reasons of security and public morale. Then there was the limitation of loading and unloading facilities at the entraining and detraining stations. At most places no more than four or five trains could be served at a time.

Besides, the layout of certain railway tracks, and their reduced capacity on the movement arteries, gave a funnelling effect to speedy build-up of forces for a short war. The availability of flats to carry tanks and the newly introduced Russian medium guns was limited. Some shuttling became necessary, and that proved time consuming. Concerted efforts were made to seek solutions for some of these limitations by rerouting trains, creating additional facilities for loading and unloading, and resorting to partial movement by motor transport.

Last, but not least, were the political compulsions. The Indian Government continued to solicit the help of the big powers in exerting political and economic pressure on Yahya Khan to seek a peaceful solution in Bangladesh.² This process of political negotiations and diplomacy ran on well into the end of November 1971. While these negotiations were on, it was considered inexpedient to make any ostensible warlike movement which would convey impressions contrary to our public declarations.

The Chief held his hand till the beginning of October, but thereafter he considered it militarily imprudent to accept the risk of a likely Pakistani preemptive move any further. Orders were issued for the start of troop concentrations in their areas of responsibility in a steady trickle. The movement started in the first week of October and continued till well after the middle of November. But the tactical imbalance which existed because of the improper location of troops was redressed by the third week of October. Yahya Khan had waited too long.

Various measures were considered for keeping these movements a well-guarded secret. The planners were aware that no secret was safe in an open society like India, and least of all the movement of troops on a large scale. To conceal the layout of the Indian defensive posture, especially the positioning of its reserve formations, to the very end, it was proposed to move them to the depth-training areas for the ostensible purpose of running exercises with troops, and then move them to the operational areas only when war was imminent. To this proposal too the Chief did not agree. He said: I don’t like this fancy stuff. You should realise that my formations are not the German Panzer divisions. They take their own time to move.’ How well Manekshaw knew his army.

The formations were accordingly moved straight to their concentration areas in broad daylight, fully accepting the breach of security for the sake of orderly execution. Several other possible measures were however adopted to hide their destinations, such as cutting down various reports and returns, choosing wayside halts, confusing the wearing of formations signs and adopting altogether new tactical numbers for signposting. Despite these measures it appears from what the Pakistani-India ‘watchers’ said after the conflict that the Indian planners were successful in hiding the identity of only one formation in the entire movement.

The Chief paid great attention to building up the jawan’s morale, especially to strengthen his motivation to accept greater physical risks in the face of fire. Manekshaw had himself been severely wounded in World War II and fully understood the plight of disabled soldiers and their families, and above all of war widows. The British in the old days went out of their way to enhance the izzat (pride) of the serving soldier and gave liberal jagirs (grants of land) and other concessions such as educational facilities to the children of ex-servicemen, and were still more magnanimous to those killed or wounded in battle.

After independence, and the installation of a democratic national government, considerations of loyalty and devotion to duty were cast to the winds and rupees, annas and pies came to the fore. As a result the grants, pensions and other concessions for those killed or wounded in war fell so miserably low that it almost amounted to a soldier’s family being thrown on the streets. The transition from the British to the new Indian environment was so sudden that the soldier did not realise its full impact till the Jammu and Kashmir operations were over.

Lt Col (later Maj Gen) Rawind Singh Grewal, who had received a machine-gun burst straight in his stomach and leg in the J and K operations, was hospitalised for a period longer than stipulated for retention of acting rank and was brought down to his substantive rank of captain after 28 days. This officer is said to have walked up to Cariappa, then Chief, and pointing to his scars, said : Sir, do you think I got these wounds for the benefit of my health? The reward for risking my life for the sake of my country has been loss of rank and pay. Trust me to fight for you again. Goodbye, Sir.’ Cariappa and his successors were aware of the problem, but nothing substantial could be achieved against the callous attitude of money-conscious politicians and the hidebound bureaucracy. A stalemate ensued and the morale of the soldiery continued to sag, especially in the materialistic environment of a developing country. The old soldier was fading out, and with him disappeared the old sense of loyalty and duty. The new soldier was brought up on the fast-changing value of the rupee.

It was noticed in the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962 and in the Indo-Pak conflict of 1965 that the Indian soldier was successively taking fewer risks under fire. Although some concessions were announced by various state governments at the end of the 1965 conflict, soon thereafter the soldier was quickly forgotten as fast as public enthusiasm diminished. Nothing was stabilised.

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The Chief wanted these grievances redressed to ensure that the soldier would go into the oncoming war with the assurance that should he get killed his family would be looked after for life, and his children educated in a manner befitting his rank and status. And should he get wounded he would not have to fend for himself. Even those missing in war or taken prisoner would receive the same consideration because, so far as the families were concerned, the bread winner was lost.

On the Chief’s orders, a study of the problems confronting battle casualties was carried out in depth and rational solutions sought to alleviate the hardships of their families in a practical manner. His broad recommendations in the form of various allowances and pension benefits were accepted by the Government with very slight modifications.3 This was a significant contribution to building up the Indian Army which only a man of Manekshaw’s calibre could achieve despite bureaucratic red-tape.