Fifty years of India's conflicts

Book review of Full Spectrum: India's Wars 1972-2020

The afterword states “Full Spectrum is a book (written) for a wide readership”. That is, in itself, sufficient reason to read this book. Much has been written on India’s conflicts. But most of it is narrow focus and aimed at specialised audiences.

A new generation of defence scholars and strategic thinkers led by this author and Srinath Raghavan have moved beyond to provide a broader perspective. As in his earlier opus, India’s Wars, Subramaniam deals with a broad spectrum of topics here, examining India’s unconventional conflicts from many angles.

His viewpoint is especially interesting because he’s an airman. He has, therefore, a deeper understanding of the use of air-power and of combined ops (“jointmanship” as it’s called in the defence services). In this respect, he’s outstanding.

The Indian Air Force has been deployed in multiple unconventional conflicts and, indeed, its predecessor, the Royal Indian Air Force, cut its eyeteeth in operations against Afghan tribesmen. Maintaining any presence in forward posts in Ladakh, Arunachal and, above all, Siachen, would be utterly impossible without air logistical support. The Army Aviation Corps has also played a vital role in moving troops into combat. Other writers tend to underplay the role air power and the navy has played in defending India’s integrity and projecting its geopolitical influence.

The title refers to the complexity of modern war, waged across the full spectrum from big armies manoeuvring under nuclear umbrellas, to skirmishes at platoon/ patrol level. India hasn’t fought a full-on conventional war since 1971, but it has experienced extremely high-intensity limited conflicts, involving the use of artillery, armour, air power and even the navy.

The date on the subtitle is a trifle misleading. The book covers the Mizo and Naga rebellions, which started long before 1972. Of course, Nagaland (along with Manipur) remains a trouble spot and Mizoram only cooled off in the mid-’80s.

In terms of chronology, the narrative starts with the Naga insurgency in the 1950s, and the deployment of an ambulance brigade with UN forces in Korea. It ends in the present day, with an analysis of the Kashmir situation, and the recent face-offs with Pakistan and China.

In sum, this has dealt with most of the hybrid conflicts “live” between 1972 and 2020. It looks at the major Northeastern insurgencies, Punjab-Khalistan, Kashmir, the artillery duels with China in Sikkim in 1967, the Sri Lanka misadventure, the successful counter-coup in The Maldives, UN commitments (Korea, Congo, Sierra Leone), naval anti-piracy patrols off Somalia, Siachen, Kargil, tensions with China (Doklam, Ladakh, Arunachal), as well as exercises like Brasstacks, the mobilisation of Parakram and other related subjects.

That’s a sweep through 50 years of strife. India’s defence forces have paid in blood throughout. The casualties aggregated over time are staggering.  Occupying and holding Siachen, for instance, has led to the deaths of over 850 personnel in 35 years, (mostly due to insanely inhospitable conditions).  There were over 100 fatal casualties in artillery duels with Pakistan in the period 2000-2002. That’s quite apart from the toll of high-intensity conflicts such as Kargil, and the IPKF expedition.

Jointmanship has often worked at the unit level. But this book makes the point that this depends on equations between individual commanders. He hopes that the current reorganisation with a Chief of Defence Staff will lead to institutional improvement of this important variable.

Full Spectrum: India’s Wars 1972-2020

Author: Arjun Subramaniam 

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 470; Price: Rs 899

One of the other useful perspectives is a broad examination of trends in military budgeting. Both as a percentage of GDP and in terms of actual equipment procurement, India has often been in the wrong place. Oddly enough, the navy is the only arm that successfully indigenised equipment manufacture. It must be noted though, that some of India’s conflict zones, particularly the high-altitude reaches, present unique problems and the defence forces have done a fantastic job in pushing equipment well beyond the limits envisaged by manufacturers. 

The author also dwells on issues with military mindsets, and on the inability to acquire and leverage intelligence in many cases. There are also cases of policy and political failure. Asymmetric conflicts such as the Punjab, Kashmir, Sri Lanka and the Northeast cannot be solved by military force alone and the political system clearly failed in these instances.

On the military side, General Sundarji for example, is remembered for his contribution to the doctrine of operating big armies on potentially nuclear battlegrounds and for “Cold Start” and other concepts. But he wasn’t interested in the slog of combatting guerrillas in the urban and jungle environments of Sri Lanka, where lack of shared intelligence between RAW and Military Intelligence led to a debacle. 

Operation Blue Star was also an intelligence failure allied to a political blunder; the army was pushed into action before it realised the dimensions of the conflict. Kargil, too, may have been nipped in the bud by the collation and analysis of available intelligence inputs. 

While the author’s point of view is that of a career officer and he adheres to the official stances in underplaying inevitable human rights violations and collateral damage, he does not whitewash such instances. He speaks to literally hundreds of serving and retired personnel and he’s also incorporated a useful reading list. This is mandatory reading for anybody interested in the subject.