Indian Defence Review

Power means the sum total of capabilities, with the help of which things can be manipulated to one’s own advantage, be it individual or nation. Along the strands of capabilities is the power of the military, a vital component of national power. Power has an intimate linkage with violence, use of force, its looming presence and threat of use, which it is ill advised to ignore. Andre Betielle1 says, “we are dealing with power when some men are able to impose their will on others, despite the latter’s resistance. In the social context, a relation of power is a relation of command and obedience. Commands may of course be implicit and obedience rendered with a show of affection, but it would not make sense to talk of command and obedience unless they are backed by the use of force, or what is more commonly the case, the threat of its use.”

National power, in its security sense, deals with two environs – internal and external. Each causes, promotes, sustains and/or controls insecurity in the other. In the last two decades or so, internal security has posed as much concern as the external threats one. The country’s power structure has had to rely progressively more and more on the military power to cope with the worsening situation across the country from the Northeast to J&K, with possibilities of it being drawn into the Naxalite–Maoist circuit from Bihar to Andhra Pradesh, and Sri Lanka, where the ethnic conflict continues unabated across the Tamil waters.

The days of idealism, enthusiasm for the unity-in-diversity theme, secularism, democratic spirit of political conduct, etc have, over these sixty years, given way to our real inherent, inborn socio-psychological traits of factionalism, diversity, self-interest, greed for the national cake and corruption

The days of idealism, enthusiasm for the unity-in-diversity theme, secularism, democratic spirit of political conduct, etc have, over these sixty years, given way to our real inherent, inborn socio-psychological traits of factionalism, diversity, self-interest, greed for the national cake and corruption—to the extent that “implicit commands and their obedience rendered with a show of affection” have disappeared, and the state has had to take over the burden of ensuring obedience through the use of force. That is where the military comes in.

The line between law and order, and security threat has been becoming thinner. What some states consider as law and order problems have assumed or have the potential to assume national security dimensions. Internal security concerns with law and order beginnings turn into national security threats, thus involving both the states and the centre. The centre cannot or does not interfere with the state government in internal security as law and order is state subject. States lack resources, grasp and scope of dealing with problems with national security connotations. The centre can only offer resources to the states in terms of intelligence, finance, force, etc. The use of force is progressive, i.e. CPOs and PMF (CRPF, ITBP/BSF, Assam Riffles) to Rashtriya Rifles and ultimately the military. So all these forces are involved in dealing with internal security (IS) situation with the Army also drawn in. It generates confusion with regard to responsibility, authority, command and control.

Internal security problems are increasing by the day. The states tend to call in the military pretty early, so as to save themselves from further exertion and use of force by the state police, for the fear of failure. It will be of interest to note that in Karnataka, at a place called Hubli, there was disturbance and violence at its Idgah Maidan in the heart of the city every year on 15 August regarding public flag hoisting between the Hindus and Muslims, which invariably resulted in the Army being called in from the nearest cantonment at Belgaum. It virtually became an annual ritual, till the Station Commander Belgaum Cantt demanded that permanent accommodation with ancillaries be constructed for the Army for a company worth of soldiers at Idgah Maidan. The practice has now stopped. In the late 1950s, the Rajasthan administration is said to have asked for military help in dealing with anti-social elements cooped up on a hillock near Sirohi, for which a company under a subaltern from Jodhpur was sent, at the approach of which, the trouble makers melted away.

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Karnataka almost asked for military help from the unit located in Bangalore to deal with Veerappan. Internal Security is directly related to external security. The obtaining situation, where internal security is worsening, makes external security that much more dangerous. Kargil is a case in example. J&K and the Northeast have gobbled up a very large chunk of the country’s military forces that may not be available to meet an external threat. We seem to be fast approaching a stage where it becomes essential to tackle the external threat that is causing and abetting internal security. We are paying an increasingly heavy price for maintaining internal security. We have expanded over military force to reach beyond a million strength – woven into its missile system, nuclear wherewithal and mechanisation, and risen to regional power dimensions. The rise also carries its obligations. Non-exploitation of that power dimension will adversely affect our own national security, regional security and bring into question our credibility, confidence and reliability levels.

We have expanded over military force to reach beyond a million strength ““ woven into its missile system, nuclear wherewithal and mechanisation, and risen to regional power dimensions. The rise also carries its obligations. Non-exploitation of that power dimension will adversely affect our own national security.

Former IAF Chief, Air Chief Marshal Krishnaswamy writes,2 “Independent India’s commitment to international law and security are enunciated in its constitution.” Stephen Cohen3 says that “India is uniquely unassertive towards others”. “As instability creeps up to India’s borders, it can choose to shape the environment through selective intervention” opines Gurmeet Kanwal.4 He goes on to add, in the context of Afghanistan “India must not shy away from its responsibility even if it becomes necessary to intervene militarily”. There are nearly twenty million Bangladeshi refugees in the NE, while the Bangladesh government flatly denies this, but yet many in its intelligentsia claim Bangladeshi Lebensraum in Assam.5 Pakistan has been waging sub-conventional war6 in J&K for nearly two decades. Tamil Nadu is open to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees (150,000 at one time), with liberal mixture of LTTE cadres, who have manufacturing facilities of arms and ammunition in the state as well as, assured medical treatment, support and sympathy. With all these, the Indian external security is becoming more and more fragile, and it IS more dangerous.

The Army has to cope up with both the country’s external as well as internal security. It has to prepare itself for both the roles. It lacks a strategic culture in dealing with security at the national level with adequate weightage demanded by its external as well as internal aspects. It had been alien to the concepts and imperatives of the idea and practice of nationhood till the British and the West evolved, spread and made it a global phenomenon in the last two centuries. Culturally and historically we have been an inward looking, complacent, absorptive, hierarchical people— militarily removed from the aggressive use of force to ensure defence of our land, people and values, lost in our phenomenal diversity—and unused to exercise military power and its effective projection both within and outside our country, to obtain peaceful defence for ourselves. Moreover unleashing of violence and causing destruction does not qualify to be called proper and justified use of force. Use of force must have deterrence and persuasion. Between these two means there is a series of mixes and variables from economic, political, sociological, diplomatic and other such elements, along with the military power.

Military power and its projection therefore encompass external as well as internal security, and include its deterrent element as well as physical application of its force. Till a couple of decades ago flag marches by the Army were sufficient to deter the outbreak of violence. No longer so now. Today violence directly addresses the Army – their posts, personnel and convoys. The terrorist attack on the country’s Parliament and the consequent deployment of the Army on the Pakistan border for war, for almost a year, bore no fruit. Terrorism has continued unabated despite muscle showing. Military power does not merely concern numbers, but is a credible sum of its weaponry, equipment, training leadership (at military and political levels), theory and practice of war, use of force, national will, resolution and daring. Employment of military power depends, for its success, on its credibility, will and favourable internal security environment. Conversely, it needs to be said now in the background of sixty years’ experience that internal security largely depends, apart from good governance, on keeping away external threats.

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Deterrence seems to have been exclusively delivered by the nuclear and Cold War debates post World War II. In India, with its diversity and aspirations of continental dimensions, even internal security demanding a deterrent variety of its own will amounts to no exaggeration. In the absence of such a philosophy of use of military power, and a suitable structure for executing it in its deterrent form, as well as actual force application, we have lost sixty years and senseless loss of life, property and developmental opportunity, as we helplessly and stoically watch the insurgencies continue in the Northeast and J&K, and go on increasing the number and variety of police and para-military forces on one side, and on the other calling in the Army more and more frequently, and giving the security forces more and more power to coerce people. The Army (and the security forces) have little say in the politics (of violence) and the controlling of violence, except by brute force and nothing else. The Army was hardly listened to, nor did it give its opinion, in the build up of Bhindranwale in Punjab in the 1980s that led to the tragic assault on the Swarnamandir, Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the shameful attack on the Sikhs. One suspects similar dynamics in the conflagration engulfing the Northeast and J&K. In the case of the Naxalite-Maoist threat spreading across Bihar-Andhra swathe, the Army seems to be on only a wait-and-watch mission, while the government is still experimenting with modes like Salwan Judum, arming village guards and the like, which have failed earlier in the Norhteast.

We justify some very strange paradoxes through our historical and cultural baggage and philosophical burden. The British, who did not have these curtailments proved to be Indias strategic visionaries, by ensuring its security through their projection of military power in Afghanistan, Tibet, Burma and Sri Lanka, and later, extending it to Persia and the Middle East.

When deterrence makes way for physical application of force, two considerations become relevant – degree of ruthlessness of the application and synergistic application. If softies like minimum force, human rights considerations, humanistic approach, etc creep in, then the effect will be reduced or delayed. There is a school of advocacy that once decided, force should be ruthlessly and fully applied to obtain quick results, thus maintaining credibility of the use of force and saving further destruction and loss. There are several aspects of validity in this argument, except that in its externals it looks repugnant. Then there is the case of the Punjab conflagration brought under control by KPS Gill through tough, often ruthless measures relentlessly. At the other end is the Naxalite–Maoist problem being allowed to build up ominously. Synergistic application of force is ideal, but generally very difficult in our Indian psychological context of ego problem, rivalry and mutual contempt nurtured by the Army and other security forces involved, i.e. police, CRPF, BSF, ITBP, Assam Rifles.

The state police (and the CPOs/PME) have good intelligence inputs and knowledge of issues and people involved, but do not have the strength, discipline and wherewithal of the Army. Army has the wherewithal, but not the intelligence and knowledge of controlling civilians, anti-social elements, etc. When the Army takes over, the police wash their hands off, leaving the Army to street bashing, killing and coercing under the cover of Armed Forces Special Powers Act and so on. So there are dissonances galore, which worsen as the army’s involvement is prolonged. And it is prolonged mainly because of the conflicting political interests and weak governance, that is unwilling to tackle fundamental issues and causes of disturbances through agrarian, economic, social, ethnic, religious and such other communal activities—leaving the hot potato in the army’s folds. That is why the need for a proper structure where holistic approaches can be evolved and put to practice, using, when necessary, the military power in an internal security threat.

Turning now to external security, the classical country’s defence. It needs a strong diplomatic backing, a favourable internal security situation, and a determined will to utilise and orchestrate its military power to ensure the country’s defence. As said earlier, today the situation demands that our internal security be ensured by projecting power outside national confines to tackle inimical powers interfering in our security, as in Punjab, J&K, NE and elsewhere. Gone are the days when we could go on persuading ourselves that we are a peace-loving, non-aggressive people with no extra-territorial ambition or out-of-country venture. In the present day it has rather become more of pontification and demagogy, self-delusion and self-tied cross round our neck. It is a cultural baggage that threatens, disturbs and destroys our security. History stands proof of this predicament and geography stands helpless.

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It is not only the security threat, threat to peace in the country, but also a challenge to regional peace and security, a responsibility and direct connection that devolves on our country in the situation it finds itself and policies it has evolved. We have a hostile, terrorist centric Pakistan tearing us in J&K; an unreliable, Lebensraum inspired Bangladesh that shelters all kinds of terrorists, insurgents and secessionists, and is causing ethnic havoc in the NE; an indifferent, unwilling Myanmar where insurgents seek safety and set the border states on fire; an obdurate Sri Lanka and its equally diabolical Tamil product, LTTE, which together threaten our southern states and south oceanic region; an unpredictable but powerful China that manipulates or can manipulate all the countries surrounding us; an uncertain Nepal, which is on fire because of a Maoist rising; and a volatile Afghanistan where American, Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Pakistani and Islamic interests are tied into Gordian knots. The mountain chains and the seas are no longer impenetrable and guarantors of security.

If we do not use the military power to ensure peace by projecting it outside, then wont we be condemned to go on suffering the loss of life and property, and of opportunity to develop and prosper?

Thus, the national security situation demands two basic active philosophies—forceful, persuasive and inevitable – good governance, and a truly synergistic response (sans ego, prejudice and political brakes) for dealing with internal security even through use of military force; and readiness to step out of national confines on part of the military force to deal with external-internal problems affecting security. The latter, in particular, involves some very strong and enduring ties and tie-ups with the international community through diplomacy, politico-economic ties and so on. An object lesson of power projection was the Bangladesh episode, while the Sri Lanka IPKF episode showed how not to attempt it. Such projection ventures need to be executed against troublesome opponents/tormentors through operations that hit them hard, exact heavy price and compel them to rein in their interference and involvement. Examples are retaliatory strikes, hot pursuit, selective strikes at camps, curtailment of access (as in case of the LTTE), deportment of recalcitrant elements, joint operations, participation in international efforts (as in Afghanistan) – all on smaller scale to begin with, bigger things will start suggesting themselves later.

There is legitimate threat of escalation of such aggressive action, leading to a nuclear threshold, as so facilely suggested. This unidirectional logic is so easy to contemplate. But will lesser irritants really lead to nuclear unleashing? Will the international community allow it? Does it rob us of our retaliatory threat? Would casualties be indeed that prohibitive and nullify achievement? Wouldn’t Pakistan suffer far greater damage, threatening its very existence? All these are part of nuclear dialectics. If this type of miniature nuclear arsenal is going to rule out conventional wars (using only non-nuclear weapons), then why build up our armies, weaponry and other wherewithal? If we do not use the military power to ensure peace by projecting it outside, then won’t we be condemned to go on suffering the loss of life and property, and of opportunity to develop and prosper? Is our cultural, historical, psychological status-quo approach proving more helpful and promising than changing it to suit the emerging needs of saving life, property, strife, violence and development?

We have a historical and cultural inheritance of treating monetary and material benefit and conservation as more important than human life, and human safety and security. Our tremendous endurance levels (mainly of the poor and ordinary citizens) and scant regard for human life (where is the dearth of man power in Indian thought and philosophy?) have always benefited the well-to-do, which includes the great Indian middle class. In the cosiness of their confines they do not care for the lives of the more numerous poor and helpless in our democracy. So the attitude – why bother to go out of your way to set security right for the less or underprivileged by disturbing the elite and their comfort levels – has gripped us. We justify some very strange paradoxes through our historical and cultural baggage and philosophical burden. The British, who did not have these curtailments proved to be India’s strategic visionaries, by ensuring its security through their projection of military power in Afghanistan, Tibet, Burma and Sri Lanka, and later, extending it to Persia and the Middle East.

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Internal security needs the support of good governance. Firstly being apolitical seems to have been stretched to mean total neutrality on part of the military, reducing it to a mere onlooker of the havoc caused by internal security strife across the country. The root trouble in all cases is political manipulation of interests, bad governance and reluctance to solve people’s problems. When all these come to a head, the hot potato is dropped in the military’s lap, and continues to remain there for long periods, with additional legal safeguards provided to the military (life AFSPA) to cook in its own fat. Manipur, Assam, J&K and the NE are a great shame to the nation and its governance. The military has its political aspect of stake in good governance. To that extent it is a political animal, and not apolitical in the sense of its neutrality in entirety. Its political aim is good governance in the interest of national security, both internal and external, which it must insist on as a political entity of the nation. How long is the military going to live under the shadow of the politician’s apprehension of a military coup and confine itself to apolitical neutrality when the security situation because of bad or weak governance goes on deteriorating?

But how can it insist on good governance and resort to the politics of good governance? It must develop its powers of assertion, persuasion, public arguments and ask for scope to be heard – by the Parliament, Parliament Committee on Defence, Cabinet Committee and so on. It has to face the eventuality of taking a stand sooner than later, in public interest. The Chief may resign – which means the next fellow will take over, but will convey the desired message that things in the elected government are murky. He may ask for voluntary retirement, which will make no difference. His disobedience or reluctance may cause his removal by the government, which would be equally bad and unproductive.

Coping with dissonance, dissent, plain speaking, assertion, disobedience and differences of opinion, acceptance or rejection of military advice, etc are, therefore, best left to developing forums, conventions, platforms, methodologies and procedures to conduct and resolve them at appropriate levels and stages.7 It will be unwholesome, even unfair, and non-productive to keep military power and its leadership away from national security concerns, deprive them of their legitimate political say, and treat them as were weapon wielding menials. It is ridiculous that a big behemoth of an armed force put up by the nation, incorporating missiles, mechanization and nuclear weaponry, holding the hot potatoes dropped by politicians, serving a government which has failed to provide good governance, and apolitically witnessing the loss of common men’s lives and property and peace, has no place and little part in the nation’s power structure to ensure security and peace.

Notes

1. Andre Betielle in “Chronicles of Our Time”, Penguin Books, 2000.
2. Air Chief Marshal (Retd) Krishnaswamy in Indian Defence Review, April 2007.
3. Stephen P Cohen in “India : Emerging Power”, OIJP, 2001.
4. Gurmeet Kanwal in Deccan Herald 4 June 2007, “Creeping Instability Around India”.
5. P C Dogra in “Treat to Security”, Manas Publications, 2007, “How Secured Is India? Destablising Factor”.
6. Brig (Retd) Kiran Krishan in “Treat to Security”, Manas Publications, 2007, “Subconventional Warfare – Doctrinal Issues”.
7. Andre Betielle in “Chronicles of Our Times”, Penguin Books, 2000.
8. “The success of democracy or, indeed, of any social institution, depends not only on good laws but also on favourable customs. It is these customs that give expression to the habits of the heart, — and if only the laws change, leaving the customs a they were, no new form of governance can be expected to achieve its objectives”.