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.
Also read: Misreading India’s strategic culture
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.
Also read: Evolution of the Indian Submarine Arm
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.
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