INDIA'S WARS
A Military History
1947-1971
Arjun Subramaniam
Harper Collins
562 pages; Rs 799
The transition from British rule to independence is conventionally described as peaceful. This is true only insofar as there was no armed conflict with the erstwhile imperial power, for multitudes died in the Partition bloodbath and there was open war within two months of the "Brexit".
The subcontinent has never enjoyed an extended period of peace since. India has fought three-and-a-half wars with Pakistan, one war with China (plus a big artillery duel), indulged in an insane foray into Sri Lanka, carried out a more justifiable counter-coup in the Maldives and also been enmeshed in innumerable long-running internal conflicts with separatists, insurgents, Maoists, and what have you. The republic also undertook several "police actions" between 1948 and 1961, to integrate princely states like Hyderabad and Junagadh, and to force the Portuguese out of Goa, Daman and Diu.
This book covers conventional conflicts and police actions during the first quarter-century of independent India's existence. The author is a senior serving officer in the Indian Air Force (IAF). That helps bring a fresh focus and perspective. The official accounts of India's wars are workmanlike at best, while the many personal memoirs written by those involved are often very agenda-driven. The focus has also tended to be army-centric with few Indian Navy and IAF personnel penning accounts.
Mr Subramaniam adds welcome detail by tapping into the IAF perspective. The IAF doesn't really get its due for 1947-48 when it airlifted troops and supplies into the beleaguered state of Jammu & Kashmir, including into cities under siege, sometimes using airfields under fire. Nor does the IAF get sufficient credit for supplying the army in 1962 under appalling conditions.
The Bangladesh campaign rewrote the textbook on heli-borne operations. A very small chopper force lifted an unbelievable number of troops across the 40-Km wide Meghna. The IAF also aided in carrying out the largest paradrop operation anywhere since World War II, by dropping a battalion into Tangail. The 2Para captured a vital bridge, and leapfrogged into Dhaka.
Not only does this book present accounts of IAF operations during all the wars; it also asks pertinent questions about inactions. For example, there was absolute refusal to use the IAF offensively during 1962, even though it was one thing that could have helped equalise the odds a little. Similarly, the Indian Navy was kept out of the 1965 war.
The author makes an interesting point. He claims that the army tended to treat the navy and air force as younger brothers and rarely involved them in strategic planning, or shared army objectives. That patronising attitude translated into a blind spot. In contrast to other senior officers, Lt General Sagat Singh, who drove the Meghna airbridge, had personal experience of using choppers in anti-insurgency operations and he appreciated what air power could do.
While the Bangladesh campaign (and some ops in 1965) saw cooperation between services, there was also a lack of inter-services connectivity on several occasions during 1965 and 1971. For example, the army often failed to call in timely air support when it was under pressure on the western front. Nor did it ask for close air support often enough when advancing. There were also absurdities such as the IAF and Indian Navy carrying out (highly successful) raids on Karachi, with each service unaware of the other service's intentions.
There are details here about the "police actions", which may be new to many readers. There are also little tit bits scattered through the accounts such as for example, references to the classified actions of the Special Frontier Force in Chittagong during 1971.
It is a pity that the book doesn't have even a brief consolidated account of internal security operations during the Naga, Mizo and Naxalite insurgencies. A clear appreciation of the compulsions and exigencies of asymmetrical conflicts would be useful since, in utilitarian terms, asymmetrical conflicts are the post-nuclear pattern, with Kargil 1999 the only conventional flashpoint.
One thing that comes through is the lack of an institutional memory. Pakistan has tried the same strategy over and over again, in Kashmir, infiltrating non-state actors and regular soldiers in mufti. India has been caught napping repeatedly. Similarly, India has not been able to counter the Chinese gambit of chipping away at disputed territory in Arunachal and Ladakh.
The author has targeted the lay reader rather than the professional historian, or the aspiring officer cramming for a Staff College exam. By this I don't mean that the book lacks rigour. Rather, it is structured in an accessible manner, and more open to recounting oral history.
As a serving officer, the author has constraints. He has to soft-pedal some criticism. But he also has the inestimable ability to connect with retired defence personnel. The oral recollections of men who served are often much more interesting than the blinkered memoirs that some of them have written. Mr Subramaniam draws extensively on interviews and conversations to add a layer of rich detail to this essential work.
