India's Military Diplomacy

By V.P. Malik

A book on India's defence and military diplomacy from a Chief of the Indian Army General V.P. Malik, Chief of the Indian Army from 1 October 1997 to 30 September 2000, writes about his experiences in the field and important strategic events in which he  was involved during his service. He has focused on decision-making processes that were followed at the political and military strategic levels as well as at the operational level. In India, such important decisions are seldom recorded in detail-almost never made public. Hence it is difficult to analyse these events in perspective, or learn lessons from them for future generations. The problem gets exaggerated for the armed forces. Despite the important national security roles envisaged and expected from them, they are seldom in the loop at the planning level. And when included in the loop, only a handful of senior officers are privy to the ministerial interactions and decision-making.  In India's Military Conflicts and Diplomacy the author tries to address problems arising from such practices. He writes about defence and military diplomacy and provides a historical as well as futuristic perspective on India's higher defence management.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper
• Release date: Nov 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9789351160847

V.P. Malik

General V.P. Malik was Chief of the Indian Army from 1 October 1997 to 30 September 2000. Concurrently, he was Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, for two years. He planned, coordinated and oversaw the execution of Operation Vijay to evict Pakistani military intrusion in Kargil in 1999.

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Preface

‘The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write; rest is hearsay.’ – Michel Eyquem Montaigne

PROLOGUE

George Patton, the American general, once said, ‘Freedom has a taste, and for those that have fought for it, the taste is so sweet that the protected will never know …’ In India, crises and armed conflicts do not attract purposive analysis. This is partly due to an exaggerated sense of secrecy and a lack of awareness about the events, and partly due to apathy towards the profession of soldiering. Not to look at these analytically, however, would be most unwise. The line between crisis and conflict leading to a wider conflagration is thin and delicate – therefore it is the responsibility of those who have closely watched the happenings and are privy to the truth to convey their views.

This book is historical; it is not an autobiography. It is about some important strategic events in which I was personally involved during my long service in the Indian Army. In narrating those events, analysing them and making observations, I have focused on the decision-making processes that were followed at the political and military strategic levels and in some cases, at the operational level also.

There is a specific purpose to this book. In India, such important decisions are seldom recorded in detail and almost never made public. I do not know if that is deliberate or just a lazy or secretive procedure. Unlike many other democratic countries, we do not follow the practice of de-classification of files and making them public after a stipulated period. When the process and the rationale of such important decisions are not known, it is difficult to analyse the events in perspective or to learn lessons from them for future generations. This discourages research. At the strategic level, one requires a long memory and longer foresight and vision. When memory is missing, floundering knee-jerk reactions and ad-hoc decisionmaking continue.

The problem gets exaggerated for the armed forces. Despite the important national security roles envisaged and expected of them, they are seldom in the loop at the policymaking and planning level. And when included in this loop, only a handful of senior officers are privy to ministerial interactions and decision-making.

What about the general public whose opinion is not only vital in a democracy but a moral support for the armed forces in a conflict situation? In India, at the level of general public opinion, there is an amorphous emotional consciousness about security imperatives of the nation. Barring small urban segments of society there is no broad stream of knowledge or analytical awareness about defence matters – the material, logistical, technological, sociological and intellectual inputs require to strengthen our defence capacities. Before a conflict, the public remains unclear about the need to provide continuous support to enable the forces to become an effective instrument of the state. Public awareness of defence matters is a sine qua non, a necessity for national defence and security purposes.

In analysing events narrated in the book and making observations, I have the enormous advantage of hindsight. The endeavour is only to learn lessons from the processes adopted, and the decisions taken and executed. It would be entirely wrong of me, or for anyone else, to cast aspersions or be discourteous to the policymakers and others who were involved in the decision making and in the operational execution when the events occurred.

This book contains eight chapters. Four chapters deal with the planning and conduct of military operations conducted in Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Sierra Leone. Two of them were carried out at the request of neighbouring foreign governments who looked up to India as a regional power. Operation Vijay was conducted to evict the Pakistan Army intrusion in the Kargil-Ladakh region at a time when the prime ministers of India and Pakistan were deeply involved in peace- and confidencebuilding talks. Their interlocutors were talking and visiting each other even when there was intense bloodletting going on in the military front. The fourth operation was conducted in the far-off West African country Sierra Leone, where our troops were sent for peacekeeping by the United Nations (UN) under Chapter VI of its charter (Pacific Settlement of Disputes). In official terms, it was a UN operation. In reality, its detailed planning and execution were overseen by us in India.

Each of these operations had a widely different strategic scenario and a widely different role for the political, diplomatic and military leadership in India. There is much to learn from the conflict and diplomatic decision making and execution of each of these operations. An important lesson lies in the famous statement that ‘military action without a diplomatic plan never succeeds while there can be no diplomacy without a military back-up’.

There is a chapter on Operation Shakti, the only nuclear weapons test conducted by India. The story of how the nuclear tests were conducted at Pokhran in May 1998 is revealing on the decision-making front. No one disputes the fact that nuclear weapons are to be controlled by the civilian political authority. However, if they have to be used, that responsibility will ultimately fall on the shoulders of the military. This chapter brings out the level of interaction and inhibition between our political authority and the military before and after the tests were conducted. Fifteen years later, the situation may have improved slightly but not enough to achieve desirable development and integration of this capability with the rest of the military doctrine. The secrecy which surrounds our nuclear programme, a legacy of the long years of developing and maintaining strategic capabilities, is now counter-productive. I would hope that the government makes public its nuclear doctrine and releases data regularly on what steps have been taken, and are being taken, to put the requirements of the doctrine in place. It is not necessary to share operational details. But an overall survey, such as an annual Strategic Posture Review, should be shared with the citizens of the country who, after all, pay for the security which the deterrent is supposed to provide. Besides, only through debate can such concepts be refined, contingencies identified and the most effective responses formulated.

This story can be linked to another anecdote that took place over chemical weapons (now prohibited). After the UN General Assembly approved the Chemical Weapons Convention on 30 November 1992, a senior military officer was asked in an international forum if India possessed chemical weapons. The officer, very confidently, replied in the negative. India signed its entry when the Convention came into force on 29 April 1997 and was required to declare any chemical weapons in its possession. The Indian military was surprised (I was vicechief of the Army then) when our Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), within the Ministry of Defence, declared a stockpile of these weapons. This stockpile was later destroyed, as laid down by the Convention.

National power, in strategic terms, is the ability to affect others to get the outcome that one wants. This can be achieved in three main ways: by attraction, negotiation and coercion. The current global trend is to mix and use the hard and soft power of a country to achieve desirable objectives. If the soft power of attraction is added to the tool kit, one can economize on sticks and carrots. The soft power of a nation rests primarily on three resources: its culture, political values and legitimate foreign policies. But combining these resources is not always easy.

Foreign and defence policies are considered as two sides of the same coin. There is a close inter-relationship between India’s foreign and defence policies. Foreign-defence cooperation illustrates the close inter-relationship and thus becomes a sensitive but important aspect in any bilateral relationship. By its very nature, it pre-supposes a certain level of trust, confidence and understanding between cooperating partners, as well as a broad coincidence of strategic objectives.

Defence and military cooperation in officer-level training, conducting joint exercises, or buying or selling defence equipment cannot, and should not, be conducted independently of the overall thrust of a country’s foreign policy. Although it is the overall foreign policy that will essentially drive a defence relationship, defence and military diplomacy serves to cement bilateral ties because it creates linkages in the field of military security. In some cases, it supplements economic relations also. India’s interests can be best served if there is much closer coordination and consultation between the defence and foreign policy establishments. Only then will India be able to optimally mesh its diplomacy with its military strength.

Three chapters, based on personal experience, are about defence and military diplomacy, a sub-optimally utilized softpower capability by India as compared to other nations of substance.

What I observed during my service, particularly after the Kargil war, is that there is glorification, there is awe, and there is respect for the Indian armed forces in the public mind. But there is little awareness about the management of the defence forces for protecting its unity and territorial integrity and for consolidating its national identity. The ‘shield’ that is vital for the Indian nation state in its conflicts is neglected and not ‘forged’ properly during peacetime. In the last chapter, I have given a historical as well as a futuristic perspective with my observations and recommendations on India’s higher defence management.

There is an old adage that ‘armies tend to fight the last war’. Capt. Liddle Hart had that in mind when he said, ‘The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.’ There are three reasons for such an observation: One, militaries tend to be highly traditional and therefore conservative in their attitude and outlook – they do not visualize and accept changes easily. Two, large organizations develop strong vested interest groups from within. And three, during peacetime, the military does not get clear an firm geo-political and strategic advice on potential threats and challenges, which is very essential for defence planning. The lesson that a balanced legal force raised and employed at the right time averts illegal bloodshed later must be imbibed and followed in letter and spirit.

CHAPTER 1

Operation Pawan: Wrong from the Start

‘Regardless of [the] handicaps and limitations, the IPKF performed its tasks with discipline, dedication and purposiveness as long as they were allowed to continue in Sri Lanka. They restored order and stability in the northern and eastern parts of the island.’¹ – J.N. Dixit

INTRODUCTION

The ethnic strife between the Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhala communities originated when Sri Lanka got its independence from Britain in 1948 and a Sinhala majority government was instituted. The new government passed legislations, including the imposition of Sinhala as the sole official language, which was considered discriminatory by the Tamil minority population. The Tamils asked for parity for their own language and when this was denied, took to the streets in protest. In the 1970s, two major Tamil parties united to form the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). The TULF started non-violent agitations for a separate state of Tamil Eelam in northern and eastern Sri Lanka for obtaining greater autonomy in a federal structure. However, the enactment of the sixth amendment of the Sri Lankan constitution in August 1983 classified all separatist movements as unconstitutional. This amendment made the peaceful TULF ineffective. It gave rise to several militant factions, including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which advocated a more radical course of action. Soon thereafter, the ethnic divisions flared into a violent civil war. ²

India signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord on 29 July 1987 with the aim of ‘resolving the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka, and the consequent violence, and for the safety, well-being and prosperity of people belonging to all communities in Sri Lanka’.³ It was an ambitious attempt to end the ethnic strife there. The Accord did not talk of an Indian peacekeeping force but did state that India would assist the implementation of this Accord. Within hours of its signing, the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), comprising an infantry division of the Army, and supported by adequate elements of the Navy and Air Force, was inducted into Sri Lanka on a very short notice. This force was expected to carry out duties of the type that Indian forces had been carrying out in the United Nations’ (UN) peacekeeping assignments. In less than three months, a much larger contingent of this force⁴ was pitch-forked into an alien milieu and against the very Sri Lankan Tamil militants it had trained to fight.

Operation Pawan is a chapter of Indian military history that contains less of honour and glory and more of the bitterness of withdrawal and an unwelcome return of the IPKF to India. After two years of fighting and suffering heavy casualties in action, there was little support from the political leadership of the country.

No one appreciated the fact that the IPKF had fought its opponents with one arm tied behind its back on account of the inherent political restrictions imposed on this peacekeeping mission. The political approach was to treat the issue only as a restoration of internal security after some kind of political and ethnic reconciliation was achieved in parts of Sri Lanka. As such, employment of heavy weapons like artillery and tanks was restricted during operations. Air strikes were never to be used.⁵ The inability to achieve the political objectives was not on account of the failure of the IPKF but due to political and diplomatic handling which was wrong from the start. The shocking result was that the very (Tamil) people in whose cause the Indian soldiers had been sent to Sri Lanka intentionally absented themselves at the official disembarkation of the IPKF at Chennai port.

What about the Sri Lankans? This was not the first time that Sri Lanka had sought military assistance from India for its security. Indian troops had been sent before to Sri Lanka at its government’s request. In early 1971, a truncated infantry battalion (of about 500 people) had been sent to secure the Colombo airport during a communist uprising. This time, however, after seeking assistance, many of its leaders connived and provided covert support to the LTTE, against whom their own government had sought military assistance from India.

It is true that the IPKF mission, while having gained tactical successes, did not succeed in its intended politico-strategic goals. But why did that happen? It happened because the Accord was a political, diplomatic, intelligence and military miscalculation. Its implementation by the people who had processed and signed it left the IPKF in the cold. It was a foreign policy and national security failure. The political fallouts have affected India’s foreign policy towards Sri Lanka. We have not been able to find a solution between our Sri Lanka foreign policy and Tamil Nadu-represented ethnic interests. The operation in Sri Lanka was a major factor (apart from the Bofors gun controversy) that led to the ouster of the Rajiv Gandhi-led government in 1989, and his most unfortunate assassination at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, on 21 May 1991.

OUR INVOLVEMENT WITH PROBLEMS IN SRI LANKA

After attending the National Defence College course on national security in New Delhi, I was posted to the Military Operations Directorate, Army Headquarters, in New Delhi in March 1987. My staff responsibility involved the India–China border and any mission in which our then small Special Forces might be involved in military contingencies within India or outside. This was the period soon after India and China had got involved in an ugly confrontation (in June 1986) when about forty Chinese soldiers occupied Wangdung near Zimithang in Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. To prevent any further encroachment, a brigade of 5 Mountain Division had been moved forward to occupy the Langrola-Hathongla ridge line, south of Thagla Ridge in October that year. To prepare and occupy the new defences, a massive joint Army–Air operation, Operation Falcon, had been launched. This deployment had shaken the Chinese who protested and reacted by bringing in additional troops into this and other sectors opposite Arunachal Pradesh. My team in the Directorate and I were spending most of our time and energy on this task, and on following Chinese military activities along the Line of Actual Control between India and China.

Just then, the confrontation between the Sri Lankan armed forces and Tamil militants became serious. It started affecting the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, particularly in the north and east. By May 1987, we were in the thick of it, working on several contingencies in Sri Lanka that could involve an Indian military intervention there or assistance to that country.

MILITARY SITUATION IN SRI LANKA

In early 1987, the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and fighting between Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE had reached a high level of violence. The LTTE had decimated its militant rival groups such as the Peoples’ Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). It was running the administration in Jaffna Peninsula except in pockets. The Sri Lankan forces began to launch offensive operations which included employment of the Air Force and blockade of essential commodities to Jaffna. This resulted in major hardships for the Tamil civil population. Nearly a hundred thousand civilians were displaced; most of them landed as refugees along the southern coast of India. This migration of Lankan Tamil refugees aroused deep-felt indignation in India, particularly among our own Tamil population. The refugees also became an increasing economic burden on Tamil Nadu, with the attendant problems of law and order.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s diplomatic efforts to mediate between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils there to find a solution to the conflict had not succeeded. By then, he had stopped India’s intelligence agencies, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), from giving any overt assistance to the Sri Lankan Tamil groups. The Sri Lankan decision to take recourse to military operations against Tamil militants and to increase training, intelligence and war material assistance from Pakistan, Israel, Singapore and South Africa had resulted in furthering acrimony and a confrontationist attitude between the governments of Sri Lanka and India. Our intelligence agencies had reported the presence of several Pakistani military advisors in Sri Lanka. There were serious concerns in India that the Sri Lankan government might invite large-scale military elements from countries considered hostile to India to deal with the LTTE.

Most of the Sri Lankan Tamil groups had been active in south India for some time. They had used Tamil Nadu as a safe haven and were actively supported by the state government, with New Delhi turning an indulgent blind eye. Their sympathizers included several political leaders, including the Tamil Nadu chief minister, M.G. Ramachandran, and almost all Opposition leaders.

In the Central government, there was a fear that if the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka went out of control, the centrifugal forces in south India could get activated due to immense sympathy for the Sri Lankan Tamils. That would cause massive unrest and a conflict situation in south India and along the southern sea belt. India’s policy, therefore, was influenced by the need to maintain unity and territorial integrity of its close neighbour Sri Lanka, its ethno-religious considerations and Tamil Nadu politics. India’s security and strategic interests were the most important factors for New Delhi.

OPERATION LIBERATION BY SRI LANKAN FORCES

By April 1987, the Sri Lankan military offensive had pushed the LTTE cadres into the Vadamarachi area in the Jaffna Peninsula. The Sri Lankan forces launched Operation Liberation – a massive offensive supported by helicopter gunships and ground attack aircraft to regain the territory of Vadamarachi in May 1987. The second phase of this Operation was to be launched on 6 June 1987 to extend the area of domination to Kankesanturai, Palali and Thondaimanaru. This military offensive is marked in Sri Lankan military history as the first-ever engagement in conventional warfare on Sri Lankan soil after British colonial rule.⁶ Rajiv Gandhi’s personal messages for ceasefire and ending the blockade of civil supplies to this largely Tamil area were summarily rejected. He then warned Sri Lanka that India would intervene to safeguard the welfare of Sri Lankan Tamils against the military onslaught.

In the Military Operations Directorate of Army Headquarters, we were following developments in Sri Lanka closely, particularly the progress of Sri Lankan forces in the Jaffna Peninsula. Around this time, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Krishnaswamy Sundarji had put us on the job of analysing and working out various intervention contingencies – coercive, diplomatic or active – for the kind of minimal and maximal military involvement which could be expected. It was a challenging task, made more difficult due to the fluid operational situation, insufficient intelligence about Sri Lanka, and non-availability of political or diplomatic guidance. For intelligence, we were entirely dependent on RAW, which had earlier trained Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups. Many people in RAW called them ‘our boys’ and, as we were told, had maintained contact with their leaders in India and Sri Lanka.

CONTINGENCY PLANNING

In such situations, militaries all over the world usually gear themselves up for the worst case scenario. Our worst case scenario was the contingency wherein the Sri Lankan government was to invite military forces from a country hostile to India to assist its armed forces. We also had to plan for a possible coup, followed by extreme political instability in Sri Lanka. These contingencies involved ‘opposed’ landing and intervention in the island nation. The least troublesome contingency, but which appeared most unlikely then, was one wherein the Sri Lankan government would seek military assistance from India for operations against the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in southern Sri Lanka. There was a wide range of contingencies that required different political mandates, force levels, equipment, orientation, training, induction and operational planning. Force induction plans required lifting of troops, weapons and equipment by air and sea, and organizing embarkation facilities and logistics bases in south India. No matter how bizarre some contingencies appeared, each one had to be analysed in detail. An outline plan had to be made for each. The formations involved for each contingency had to come from different locations. The units and their loads had to be divided as per the capacity of each Air Force aircraft (Il-76, AN-12, AN-32) or naval ship and landing craft earmarked for this purpose on the eastern seacoast. The sequence of landing had to be worked out in accordance with the overall operational plan for the contingency. A critical factor in each scenario was the time available for induction and execution of plans. Very importantly, the entire contingency, codenamed Operation Pawan, had to remain highly classified.⁷ As Operation Pawan involved tri-service efforts, the contingency planning staff of all three services met daily till late evening. The advantage was that we got to know each other very well.

The draft contingency scenarios and plans were presented to the three service chiefs and once to the minister of state in the Ministry of Defence, Arun Singh. The security of these plans was extremely important. Such briefings were strictly restricted to officers on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. During the weeks when the three services had been working together, there were no inputs or guidance from the Ministry of External Affairs. Kuldip Sahdev, joint secretary (BSM) of the Ministry of External Affairs, attended one briefing session but made no comments.

On 2 June 1987, the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), under the chairmanship of