Decoding the Dragon

  Oblivious of the threats to national security

Lt-Gen Harwant Singh ( Retd )

                 The measure of success of our foreign policy is best assessed from the fact that all our immediate neighbours are hostile towards us or at best unfriendly. Not only that, China ’s influence in these countries has been on the increase. Taken together with the ‘string of pearls’ policy, China , is out to squeeze India from all sides. Turning a Nelson’s eye to these and the military infrastructure build-up in Tibet, or at best underplaying these may be a convenient response and easy way out of this predicament, but the dangers are real, though they may appear distant at this point of time. China’s policy keeps time on its side while we remain complacent. Even keeping time on its side China has been, assiduously and with single mindedness has been creating over-all military capabilities and military infrastructure in Tibet, building overall naval capabilities, along with diplomatic thrusts in countries on our periphery. China uses Pakistan as a proxy to tie down India locally.

          We granted to China, on own volition, suzerainty over Tibet and later without resolving the border issues rushed to shift our stance from ‘ Tibet being an autonomous region within china’ to it being part of that country. In the process we lost whatever leverage we had in the resolution of border issue. Once India acknowledged Tibet as part of China , that country laid claim over Arunachal Pradesh. Obama during his recent visit to China tried to give mediation role to China to resolve the Kashmir issue, though since then he has retracted from that position. Grand is the scale of our policy failures!

        Tibet is the water reservoir of India and China will eventually gain control over waters of rivers flowing into India . China plans to divert the waters of Tsangpo ( Brahmaputra river) to its arid areas and some works on this appears to have already started. It also plans hydel dams on some other rivers flowing into India . Our own hydel power plant on Bramhaputra, upstream of Pasighat, has been hanging fire for nearly four decades. China’s ever increasing influence in Nepal will result in building railway line to Khatmandu and constructing hydel projects in that country, giving control over rivers flowing into India. China is upgrading the road communications from Tibet to PoK and building hydel projects there. Proposal to construct a railway line to PoK also appears to be on the cards. These developments have serious implications for India .

         Not only have we been complacent but decidedly negligent of the emerging security scene. At two percent plus of GDP for defence as against seven percent of China out of a GDP, twice the size of ours, India’s defence preparedness vis-à-vis China ought to appear alarming to even those with impaired vision and limited intelligence. In the real world, economic strength in the absence of military power is unsustainable. The gun boat diplomacy and wars of nineteen century were to capture markets, enhance commerce for economic gain and spread influence over ever larger areas, so will be the power play of the twenty first century, except that the form, contours and  policy framework will under go a change.

                  While we allocate two percent plus on defence, thousands of crores out of this component of the budget allocated for capital expenditure have been regularly surrendered, perhaps as part of a conspiracy between the MoD and Finance Ministry. Yet we need to ponder as to how well we deployed the remaining part of our annual national budgets and how China even with a late start has galloped ahead, leaving us far behind in both economic and military fields. Sixty two years after independence, almost every defence item of consequence is imported. While defence expenditure in most developed countries including China , has had a positive impact on the country’s economy, in our case, because of this import factor, it has been a negative factor.

               It is no body’s case that we enter into an arms race with China, for such a policy will retard economic progress of the country and would perhaps serve China’s ends. What needs to be done is to the create military capabilities to deter an adversary from undertaking any adventurous moves against India. We need to build naval capabilities so that India remains dominant naval power in the Indian ocean region. Indian security concerns are linked to developments in Nepal.  Indian policy towards that country policy must aim at developing deeper understanding of common security and economic imperatives.  A friendly democratic Nepal would serve economic and security interests of both the countries. Our current policies towards Nepal need complete revamping.  

           

         Policy failures apart, India’s higher defence organization is dysfunctional and this flaw is real and can be ignored only at our peril. Its ability to meet future security challenges is highly suspect. A re-look at the manner in which we responded to a serious threat to our territorial integrity at Kargil holds many a lesson. Since then nothing has changed and where changed, it is all the more the same.

         Kargil conflict brings out the discord, disarray and dithering in our response to that aggression. It took 19 days ( from 6/7 May to 26 May ) for the army and the IAF to traverse common ground and were still unable to speak in one voice. Cabinet Committee on Security took nine days to arrive at the decision to deploy the IAF. Even so the response was timid, marked by pusillanimity and vacillations: condemning troops to frontal attacks,: fearing escalation of the conflict. This was at a time when Pakistan, scared of Indian riposte, was at great pains to deny its involvement in that perfidy. At another level various components of the defence services were unable to synergise their full potential due the inherent faults-lines in the higher defence set-up.

             While we may claim that 1962 has been left far behind but not much has altered since then. Even in mid nineteen eighties, that is twenty three years after 1962, my forward most post on the MckMohan Line in the Walong Sector of Arunachal Pradesh was five days march from the ‘road-head’ and the Chinese post opposite was connected by a class 18 road. 120 miles long lines of communication for logistic support to my brigade spread across a wide river to be crossed in a boat and the other only on elephant back. Figure sustaining brigade operations on the back of two elephants! Within the brigade defences one battalion was across the river connected not by a bridge but a steel rope. In the adjoining valley my defences were 21 days march from a road head. By then much military infrastructure had already come up in Tibet. Military capabilities take a long time to build while policies can change overnight and threats materialize as quickly.

         Recently one of the Home Secretaries ( there are a number of them ) commented that government has been wanting to make roads upto our Northern borders but military has been opposing this proposal. Making road without building matching military capabilities and military infrastructure to use these for both defensive and offensive operations is to provide the aggressor easy ingress routes.  Even within the border areas, internal roads have not been build. In my brigade sector in Arunachal Pradesh,  which was the size of half of Himachal Pradesh, there was only one road and that also a defence road. While large sums allocated every year for development in the sector disappeared in the pockets of politic-bureaucratic combine.

            Some argue that we have the fourth largest army in the world so where is the problem. The problem is the security environments and the military’s commitments in coping with the threats: within and without. Modernisation of the army stands stalled for more than two decades. The state of our navy and air force is far less comforting.

              Foundation stone for Rohtang tunnel for an all weather road to Ladakh was laid by the then PM a decade earlier and the tenders for the work has just been finalized. The railway line to Leh is expected to take 10 years and the railway line to Kashmir valley, 62 years after independence is still to be completed.  There has been no addition to rail links in the NE beyond what the British left. Demand for a light tank which can operate on the Northern plateau has been hanging fire for more than a decade.

              It is nobody’s case that the developments on the Tibet border are the harbinger of a conflict and that the Dragon at the door is about to devour us. To under play these, as we did during the fifties and early sixties would be unwise. Whereas these developments ought to have been taken as a ‘wake-up call’ and wake up we must even at this belated stage and shake ourselves out of our complacency and stupor.

              Activating an air field here and making a new one there and adding a few roads or one or two mountain divisions, deploying fighter planes or even Brahmos missiles will not do. These are mere knee jerk reactions and all that goes with such responses and in a way are reminiscent of events leading upto 1962. There is the requirement of evolving a comprehensive and long term national security policy, taking into account the current and future security concerns and threats. Thereafter work assiduously and speedily to develop military infrastructure and capabilities backed by appropriate diplomatic thrusts to meet the security challenges of the future.

 A nuclear and emerging economic power, (in the midst of potentially unstable regimes and emerging security imperatives) with ambitions to exercise influence for the stability and security of the region and to safe guard vital national interests , cannot have military capabilities which in no way match those of the potential adversaries. Equally an antiquated and potentially dysfunctional decision making and operational system in the defence apparatus is anathema to successful conduct of defence policy and operations. Delay in adopting the CDS system and integration of service headquarters with the MoD could prove very costly to the nation. Existing integration of defence services headquarters with the MoD is a complete farce, a fraud on the nation and is mere bureaucratic chicanery.

 (Published Tribune - Oct 12th 2010)