Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964, independent India’s first prime minister 1947–64) believed in the civilizational inheritance
of India. He wrote: ‘There seemed to me something unique about the continuity of
a cultural tradition through five thousand years of history, of invasion and upheaval, a tradition which was widespread among
the masses and powerfully influenced them. Only China had such a continuity of tradition and cultural life.’
3 However, he did not overlook differences in India. Rather, he emphasized, ‘cultural unity amidst diversity’.
4 Nehru continues: ‘… a country with a long cultural background and a common outlook on life develops a spirit that is peculiar
to it and that it impressed on all its children, however much they differ among themselves.’
5 Here Nehru is expressing something similar to the approach of the strategic culture theorists.
However, Nehru differs from the strategic culture theorists when, unlike the latter, he assumes that the civilizational ethos
of Bharat is not confined to a mere handful of elites but has imbued even the common masses through the ages. Nehru noted:
‘… for our ancient epics and myths and legends, which they knew so well, had made them familiar with the conception of their
country, and there were always some who had traveled far and wide to the great places of pilgrimage situated at the four corners
of India.’
6Nehru is not alone in identifying a civilizational ethos of India. Jaswant Singh, who served as deputy chairman of the Planning
Commission and also as foreign minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party (i.e., the BJP, the Hindu right-wing party of independent
India) government (1998–2004), like Nehru and Gandhi accepted the idea that the accommodating capacity is one of the principal
characteristics of Hinduism. The strength of India’s civilization, in Nehru’s paradigm, lies in its capacity to adapt and
assimilate.
7 In Jaswant Singh’s words: ‘
Sanatan is “for all”; it is the ultimate of inclusiveness, it is
sanatan that subscribes to the noble concept of “
sarvapath sambhav”.’
8 Singh asserts that India is accommodative and tolerant because of Hinduism. Unlike the case of countries with Judaic religions,
in India other religions have flourished. In Jaswant Singh’s paradigm, unlike that of Nehru, the Hindu influence is grossly
represented.
Jaswant Singh claims that there is only one culture in India. It is Indian/Hindu/
Bharatiya.
9Jaswant Singh notes the negative effect of Hinduism on India’s grand strategy:
The ethos of the Indian state was crippled by another failing. Not just occasional, often an excessive, and at times ersatz
pacifism, both internal and external, has twisted India’s strategic culture into all kinds of absurdities. Many influences
have contributed to this: an accommodative and forgiving Hindu milieu; successive Jain, Buddhist, and later Vaishnav-Bhakti
influences resulting in excessive piety and, much later, in the twentieth century
ahimsa…. An unintended consequence of all these influences, spread over many centuries, has been a near total emasculation of the
concept of state power, also its proper employment as an instrument of state policy, in service of national interests.
10
The core concept of Nehru’s foreign policy was the
Panchsheel (five principles), which Nehru explained to the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of the Parliament) on 17 September 1955. The first
principle is recognition by countries of their own and each other’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. The
second is non-aggression; the third is non-interference with each other; the fourth is mutual respect and equality; and the
fifth is peaceful coexistence.
11 Jaswant Singh judges Nehru’s
Aussenpolitik harshly. He writes that the core of Nehru’s position on China, ‘
Hindi-Chini Bai Bhai’ and ‘
Panchsheel’, perished on the bleak heights of the Aksai Chin and the high passes of north-east India in the late autumn of 1962. And
these two significant foreign policy errors were the direct outcome of Nehru’s idealistic romanticism.
12One modern Indian analyst notes that even the policy of
ahimsa followed by Gandhi, which to an extent influenced Nehru, has elements of realism inherent in it. He justifies Nehru’s ‘peaceful’
policy towards China through the lens of realism. He claims that in the 1950s, the Indian army was going through a process
of reorganization. At that time, it was no match for the People’s Liberation Army of China. Hence, Nehru had recourse to
Panchsheel.
13 Despite the rhetoric, Nehru also tried to attain
a hegemonic position for India. As early as 1948, Nehru wrote that India is the natural leader of Southeast Asia, and perhaps
of some other parts of Asia as well. This is because there was no other possible leadership in Asia, and any foreign leadership
would not be tolerated.
14 Under Nehru’s stewardship, when India tried to follow such a course, it resulted in conflict with China.
When necessary, Nehru was not averse to utilizing Kautilya’s dictum: ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’. Just one year after
independence, Nehru observed:
… as a result of Pakistan coming into existence and the growth of an Islamic sentiment, the Middle Eastern countries will
tend to become somewhat hostile to India…. Our general policy in regard to them should be one of friendship as well as firmness….
Afghanistan being anti-Pakistan, automatically is a little more friendly to India. We should take full advantage of this fact.
Turkey also is not very much affected by the Islamic sentiment.
15
Tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the Durand line, in Nehru’s eyes, was to be used as diplomatic leverage by India.
Another streak of Nehru’s realism is evident in the letter of advice he wrote to U. Nu of Burma in 1949. Nehru wrote that
any attempt to fight on all fronts is not likely to succeed and may well end in serious losses. In politics as in warfare,
Nehru advised U. Nu, one takes up one’s enemies one by one.
16C. Raja Mohan, an Indian foreign policy analyst, offers a realist interpretation of Nehru’s non-aligned movement. India’s
treaty-based relations with Nepal and Bhutan were security alliances whereby New Delhi promised to protect these states against
external threats. This constituted India’s inner circle. In the next concentric circle, which comprised India’s extended neighbourhood,
New Delhi’s policy was determined more by balance-of-power considerations than by ideological ones. India refused to join
the non-aligned bandwagon against the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan in the early 1980s. This is because from
the 1970s onwards the USSR had been India’s steadfast ally. At the global level, the third concentric circle, India’s alignment
with the Soviet Union was shaped by considerations of national interest. Throughout the Cold War, India determinedly sought
to reduce Chinese influence in Southeast Asia. There is nothing, then, in the history of India’s non-aligned policy that suggests
a fundamental aversion to playing power politics, including
alliances.
17 Both Raja Mohan and George K. Tanham (an American analyst) accept the idea that Kautilya’s
mandala policy continues to shape India’s grand strategy.
18In the last decade of the twentieth century, India’s strategic policy represented both change and continuity. The imperatives
for change were the disappearance of the USSR and the fiscal crisis that led the Narasimha Rao–led INC government in the 1990s
to start the process of globalization.
19 Tanham, taking a leaf from Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations scenario, portrays India’s strategic landscape in the
following words:
India continues to see Islam as a … threat. Having been invaded by different Muslim peoples for several centuries, then ruled
by the Mughals for about 200 years, Indians are understandably sensitive to perceived Islamic threats. Today, they are surrounded
on their land borders by seven Muslim countries. Pakistan’s destabilizing efforts in India, supported by other Muslim nations
is the clearest and nearest and most important Islamic threat. The recent formation of five independent republics in Central
Asia, all with large Muslim populations, is seen as the latest manifestation of the Muslim presence.
20
Even with potentially hostile neighbours, India’s policy is to seek cooperation first, if possible, with some, if not with
all; the last option is war. Swarna Rajagopalan asserts that India’s policy of seeking strategic cooperation with its neighbours
is shaped by the ethical security politics derived from the
Ramayana. One of the principle themes of the
Ramayana is strategic cooperation for the purpose of tackling the enemy. This is evident in Rama’s strategic alliance with the
vanaras for the purpose of tackling Ravana.
21
On 9 May 1929, M. K. Gandhi declared:
This I know that if India comes to her own demonstrably through non-violent means, India will never want to carry a vast army,
an equally grand navy and a
grander air force. If her self-consciousness rises to the height necessary to give her a non-violent victory in her fight
for freedom, the world values will have changed and most of the paraphernalia of war would be found to be useless.
22
While Gandhi advocated abolishing the armed forces in free India, Nehru demurred. The latter may not have been interested
in matters military but did not completely neglect them. In 1937, Nehru noted:
There is no doubt that India can build up an efficient defence apparatus…. We live in an abnormal world, full of wars and
aggression, when international law has ceased to be and treaties and undertakings have no value, and an unabashed gangsterism
prevails among nations…. The only thing to be done to protect oneself is to rely on one’s strength as well as to have a policy
of peace.
23
Despite the Nehruvian policy of apathy as regards projection of power overseas, India has been very sensitive as far its borders
are concerned and has not hesitated to start conventional operations when its borders have been threatened. Tanham offers
an explanation:
Independent India sees itself as continuing the tradition of non-aggression and non-expansion outside the subcontinent. Nehru’s
foreign policy rested on these principles, and subsequent leaders have followed suit. The tradition of non-aggression, however,
has never applied internally. Warfare within the subcontinent has been the norm for centuries. States fought to gain power
and wealth, to establish empires, or to destroy them. This seeming paradox with regard to non-aggression arises from the Indian
view of the subcontinent as a single strategic area that coincides with Indian national interests. This belief justified India’s
taking much more aggressive measures – to protect its interest in the subcontinent.
24
Air Marshal R. K. Nehra asserts that post-1947 India’s military response to its hostile neighbours like Pakistan and China
has been passive owing to the pervasive influence of the Hindu mindset. Too much focus on
ahimsa and
shanti (peace) is seen by Nehru as the root cause of India’s fragmented approach to matters military. The focus on non-violence
in Hinduism, argues Nehra, is due to the pervasive influence of Buddhism. In original Hinduism, martial valour was emphasized.
Nehra cites the sloka: ‘
Vira bhoga Vasundhara’, that is, the mighty heroes will enjoy the earth.
25 In a similar vein, Brigadier Kuldip Singh notes, in a monograph
published in
2011, that ancient Hinduism emphasized just militarism. He continues:
India’s military mind is as pristine, resplendent and advanced as its longstanding civilization. Its inherent philosophy of
life and statecraft accorded exalted primacy to warfare, as evident from the
vedas, the
epics,
Arthasastra and other classics…. Indians were not only men of thought alone, but men of action too. The aggressive combative spirit of
ancient Bharata is exemplified by its confederated military might, which evicted the Greeks, Kushan and Hun invaders from
the Indian soil.
26
The retired Indian Lieutenant-General S. C. Sardeshpande writes that India’s passive defence policy throughout its history
is a product of the ‘inward looking self-satisfied attitude’ of the people. This is due in part to the geographical features
of India. High mountains in the north and jungle-filled hills in the east, with sea and ocean along the western and southern
borders, has resulted in India being an ‘inward-looking geographical entity.’ Hence, the people are satisfied with their natural
geographical frontiers. Throughout history, Indians have not exhibited any extra-territorial ambitions.
27 This geographical inwardness has been further strengthened by cultural passivity. Sardeshpande notes: ‘Preoccupation with
spiritualism, theorizing, complacency and plentitude led Indian militarism away from geographical planes to the peculiar planes
of glory, honour, sport and kind of ritual.’
28 The net result throughout history has been a sort of non-lethal warfare. He continues: ‘But perhaps because of cultural identity
and stress on spiritualism, wars seldom attained cruel, fanatic or exterminatory proportions. By and large wars remained far
less inhuman as compared to those in European and American continents.’
29As regards Indian politicians’ attitude towards the armed forces, Nehra comments: ‘… the new rulers of the country suffered
from an overdose of
ahimsa, which has become a part of their mental make-up; it was lodged in their subconscious. Most of them felt apologetic about
militarism. There was a visible lack of enthusiasm about the armed forces in the political class.’
30 For instance, in 1955, Nehru declared that India’s symbols throughout its long history had never been great military
commanders but men like Buddha and, in our own time, Gandhi, both of whom were messengers of goodwill and peace.
31 Kuldip Singh warns politicians about the importance of military strength for national security in the following words: ‘India’s
inherent depth and vitality of
dharma, spirituality and wealth of knowledge and natural resources, on their own, could not protect its frontiers. The case of Emperor
Asoka bears out how India’s neglected defence system led to national humbling and foreign intrusion, in spite of its otherwise
established civilizational grandeur during his time.’
32Because politicians have neglected defence since Independence, claim several military officers, the armed forces have become
demoralized. The performance of the Indian army during the 1965 war with Pakistan was below average owing to a defensive mindset
and a lack of an aggressive attitude and killer spirit. Nehra gives an instance of the defeatist Hindu mindset prevailing
even among the top officers of the armed forces. In 2009, Admiral Suresh Mehta, the chief of the naval staff and chairman
of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, publicly stated that India could never catch up with China and that the gap between the
two would only widen with time.
33 Kuldip Singh warns: ‘We need to change the attitude and recognize that war undertaken for a noble cause, and as the last
resort, it is the highest worship of God.’
34Both civilian commentators and military officers suggest that the epics could impart lessons for the modern military. For
instance, Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu claims that the
Mahabharata highlights the strategy for breaking into and breaking out of a
chakravyu (enemy encirclement).
35 Brigadier G. D. Bakshi writes that principles of war could be gleaned from the
Mahabharata. Despite changes in technology, the tactical and strategic principles of warfare remain constant. He comments that the Mahabharata
War was a high-intensity war of short duration; it lasted for only eighteen days. All the conventional wars fought by India
with Pakistan and China were also of short duration. For instance, the Second India-Pakistan War (1965) lasted for twenty-two
days, and the Third India-Pakistan War (1971) lasted for fourteen days. Again, the
Mahabharata notes that the campaigning season lasts from November to March. Bakshi notes that independent India’s wars, like the 1962
China-India War, occurred during
November–December. Later, the 1971 India-Pakistan War occurred during November and December. The
Mahabharata emphasizes that wars are to be fought with large numbers of regular soldiers, and the Indian army is comprised of long-service
volunteer soldiers from the ‘martial races’.
36Bakshi notes that in the
Mahabharata one finds two military approaches: the traditional direct approach, enunciated by Bhisma, and the indirect approach as practiced
by Lord Krishna and Dronacharya’s son Ashwathama. The latter approach finds its logical culmination in Kautilya’s
kutayuddha. The former approach dominates the Indian military mind. The direct approach of conducting
dharmayuddha – emphasizing restraint, chivalry, a sporting mentality, symmetrical responses, and so on – is responsible for the inefficiency
of Indian tactics. Bakshi continues that in accordance with the
dharmayuddha tradition, Indian armour was used during the India-Pakistan conflicts only against enemy armour in a tank-killer role. Indian
armour was not used against enemy infantry or for deep penetration of the enemy’s vulnerable flanks due to the ethics of
dharmayuddha.
37 For instance, during the 1965 India-Pakistan War, an Indian armoured division was ordered to seek out and engage Pakistan’s
First Armoured Division in a classic tank-versus-tank battle. It was an attrition-oriented paradigm, and the Indian generalship
was further hamstrung by over-cautiousness and rigidity.
38 It is part of our inheritance, Bakshi continues, that chariots must only attack chariots.
39 Here, Bakshi is referring to the
Mahabharata and
Manusamhita’s concept of
dharmayudha.
After analyzing the three India-Pakistan Wars, Bakshi notes in an article:
By historical legacy, we are an attrition oriented army. This legacy goes back to the era of the Mahabharata War in 1200 BC.
Today, we need to grow beyond tactical frontal pushes at the corps level. Our Operational Art must be enhanced in sophistication
to include single and double envelopment pincer movements and turning movements…. What we need to recognize is the … level
of Operational Art in the context of limited or unlimited wars in the subcontinent and the dire necessity of outgrowing attrition
mindset (which incidentally is a legacy of the Mahabharat War).
40
In Bakshi’s eyes, the absence of intelligence-oriented covert operations is a weakness of the Indian military system. He writes:
Kutayuddha methods were despised by ‘honourable’ Indian soldiers of the Mahabharata period. The tragedy is that even today our Indian
regular soldiers still tend to despise these methods as unethical or unsoldierly. Notice the fact that officers of our intelligence
corps have no bright career opportunities
vis-à-vis the other arms. It appears intelligence and covert operations are second rate side shows for which only second grade officers
can or need be spared. This attitude has been further reinforced by our British heritage.
41
Bakshi’s observation is supported by a fellow officer, Kuldip Singh, in the following words: ‘The poor showing of India’s
intelligence system has been an interminable story of unmitigated disaster. The importance of having an effective intelligence
organization is highlighted in not only the
epics, but also the
Arthashastra constitutes an ageless masterpiece on surveillance and spying, in both peace and war.’
42 Bakshi claims that the
acharyas of the
Mahabharata were experts in conducting psychological war. Their main aim at all times was to attack the mind of the enemy commander.
43If necessary on the basis of historical study, certain aspects of Hinduism, write some officers, need to be revised. Kuldip
Singh concludes that the failure of the Hindus during the medieval era was due to passive defence. The medieval Hindu rulers’
failed to pre-empt Islamic invasions and also did not carry the battle to the invaders’ bases. Hence, all the battles were
fought deep inside India. Singh is probably referring to Prithviraja Chauhan and the two battles of Tarain with Muhammad Ghori.
Aggressive defence and pre-emptive action could have saved the Hindus. And, Kuldip Singh emphasizes, we should learn from
such mistakes.
44C. Coker claims that the principal lesson of
Arthasastra is asymmetric warfare. In 1988, the office of the U.S. secretary of defence concluded that India would seek to deny the U.S.
Navy uncontested control over the Indian Ocean and that New Delhi would use asymmetric sufficiency as a counter. In Indian
coastal warfare, subsurface weapons could function as a
deterrent.
45
The late twentieth century was characterized by the proliferation of unconventional warfare. The latter term refers to intra-state
rather than inter-state war. In recent times, the term ‘insurgency’ has connoted an organized movement aimed at the overthrow
of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict.
46 Lieutenant-Colonel Vivek Chadha of the Indian army makes a distinction between terrorism and insurgency. In his framework,
terrorist movements are based in urban areas, whereas insurgencies establish their bases in rural areas and then graduate
to urban regions.
47 Chadha’s definition is somewhat similar to James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin’s view. They write: ‘Insurgency is a technology
of military conflict characterized by small, lightly armed bands practicing guerrilla warfare from rural base areas.’
48 Insurgency includes both guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Insurgency and responses to it by the polity concerned (known as
counter-insurgency or COIN) together constitute unconventional warfare. A high level of insurgency and COIN in a country create
a civil war.
A group of Western scholars argue that civil wars occur more frequently in countries with substantial populations belonging
to different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups.
49 India has eighteen officially recognized languages, twelve ethnic groups and seven religious groups that are further subdivided
into various sects, castes and sub-castes.
50 Somewhat like Stephen Peter Rosen, Jaswant Singh notes that the culture of divisive politics within India prevents the state
from the generating surplus military power needed for power projection outside the country. Jaswant Singh writes that India’s
strategic culture has become internalized, fixated upon curbing dissent within the subcontinent rather
than combating external dangers, and has thereby created a yawning chasm of mutual suspicion between the state and the citizen.
This in turn has prevented India from developing its true power, that is, its capability to project power beyond the boundaries
of India.
51 In a similar vein, Sardeshpande claims that geographic compartmentalization within South Asia has resulted in political fragmentation
despite cultural unity. The net result has been a long tradition of intense internecine warfare within South Asia.
52Tanham notes that Kautilya long ago warned against the intrigues of foreign kings as a threat to one’s own security, even
though the
Arthasastra accepted intrigue and the use of internal spies as legitimate self-defence measures. The Indians suffer from a pervasive
fear of ‘foreign hands’ at work among India’s unstable neighbours and within India.
53 In Kautilya’s format, the principal threat to the
rashtra encompassing the whole subcontinent comes from
kopa. This is also the view of various Indian military officers.
54 Like Kautilya, Chadha writes that with external support, an ongoing insurgency can escalate into a regular war between the
states.
55 The Pakistani army and especially the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have been supporting insurgents since the mid-1980s
with money, equipment and training. The objective is to exhaust India by giving a ‘thousand cuts’ with the aid of the insurgents.
56 Pakistan’s strategy is to give moral and material assistance to groups like Hizb-ul-Mujahidin, which aim at the secession
of Kashmir from India through armed struggle and then merger with Pakistan.
57 The transnational connection is also apparent in Kashmir’s case. Al-Qaeda connects sub-national organizations with a trans-national
network.
58 Osama Bin Laden declared a
jihadin Kashmir in 1989 and extended support to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jihad-Islami, Harkat-ul-Ansar, Lashkar-e-Toiba
and Jaish-e-Mohammed
tanzeems (militant outfits).
59 In 1989, about 400,000 personnel (from the Indian army and the various paramilitary forces) were deployed in Kashmir.
60The most serious insurgency that India has to face is the Islamic insurgency in Kashmir. Monica Duffy Toft claims that the
proportion of civil wars in which religion has become a central issue has increased over time. Further, religious civil wars
are much more destructive than wars fought over other issues. Toft goes on to say that religious civil wars last longer and
result in more combatant and especially non-combatant deaths, because while nationalism by nature tends to be a local issue,
religion tends to be trans-national.
61 One aspect of the rebellion in Mizoram, the insurgents claim, is protection of the Christian religion against the ‘Hindu’
Indian state despite the post-independence Indian government’s professed secular approach to politics.
62 In north-east India, more than forty insurgent groups are operating.
63 In 1982, more than 200,000 military personnel were deployed in north-east India.
64 Between 1986 and 1996, the Indian army suffered a total of 2,467 dead and 14,359 wounded in its various COIN missions.
65Kautilya and the Indian military officers following him note that initiating or destroying
kopa is a time-consuming affair. Walter C. Ladwig III writes that analysis of India’s COIN policies shows that India has the patience,
determination and resources to outlast the insurgents.
66 Both in India and Nepal, the Maoists conceive their armed violence against the state as a sort of
dharmayuddha. The violence they resort to is positive for the well-being of the community and in reaction to
the corruption, inefficiency and misrule of the rich against the poor.
67 Both the
Mahabharata and the
Arthasastra dislike tyrants. Kautilya says that while tyrants are interested in self-aggrandizement, efficient ‘just’ monarchs are more
concerned with the interests of the
rashtra. Kautilya warns the king to use
danda with a sense of discrimination and by steering a middle course. Kautilya repeatedly emphasizes good governance to prevent
kopa. He urges that, if necessary, then righteous customs should be initiated and unrighteous customs abolished. Kautilya notes
that the government should be attentive to the cultural sensibilities of people inhabiting troubled regions. The state’s policies
should respect the dress, language and cultural behaviour of the people in order to win and retain their loyalty.
68 Proper respect should be shown by the government to the fairs and festivals of people in a disturbed zone, and punishment
should be moderate. Kautilya advocates replacement of corporal punishment with monetary fines and opposes exorbitant monetary
fines that might alienate subjects who have erred slightly. During natural calamities, in order to prevent the anger of the
people from crossing the threshold and resulting in
kopa, Kautilya warns that state officials must initiate large-scale relief measures to alleviate the sufferings of people in the
disturbed zone.
69The Indian army frequently provides aid to civil operations during natural calamities. Some examples will suffice. On 29 March
1999, an earthquake occurred in the Garhwal region. In response, the Indian army distributed food packets, blankets and tents,
and the affected civilians were treated by the army’s medical units. During 17–18, October 1999, a cyclone from the Bay of
Bengal caused devastation in the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In response, more than 5,000 army personnel
were deployed to the affected areas. They rescued marooned civilians, distributed food packets and provided medical aid. About
22,288 civilians were evacuated; 33,722 civilians were medically treated; 4,259 tons of food items were distributed; and 2,48,000
litres of drinking water was provided.
70For the COIN forces, Colonel Harjeet Singh (who served in the Sikh Light Infantry and in the Army Training Command before
his retirement in 1998) notes what he calls the Ten Commandments: (i) no rape, (ii) no molestation, (iii) no torture resulting
in death or maiming, (iv) no military disgrace, (v) no meddling in civil administration, (vi) competence in platoon/company
tactics, (vii) willingness to conduct civic actions, (viii) developing interaction with the media, (ix) respect for human
rights, and finally (x) fearing only God and upholding
dharma. Harjeet Singh defines
dharma as the ethical mode of life that leads to the path of righteousness. Here, Harjeet Singh is obliquely referring to the
dharmayuddha concept inherent in Hinduism. And the latter part of the last commandment refers to
nishkakarma, that is, doing one’s own duty without looking for any tangible reward. This is a concept lifted from the
Bhagavad Gita. The eighth commandment is elaborated so as to use the media as a force multiplier rather than a force degrader.
71 In case of a popular uprising (Kautilya’s
kopa), the personalities of the leaders and public opinion constitute, for Kautilya and Clausewitz, the centre of gravity.
72 Public opinion is an integral part of democracy, especially in a country like India. In 2005, Chadha asserted that in insurgencies
the idea is more important than arms.
73 Lieutenant-General Depinder Singh (who served with the Indian Peace Keeping Force [IPKF] in Sri Lanka in the 1980s) focuses
on psychological warfare and public relations as part of COIN operations.
74 Harjeet Singh’s third commandment finds support in the
Arthasastra. The
Arthasastra warns that prison officials should not harass or torture prisoners; especially as regards female prisoners, there should
be no sexual harassment, as such a policy is destructive of the legitimacy of the state in the long run.
75 As a point of comparison, the U.S. torture of Iraqi prisoners in 2003 at Abu Ghraib Prison resulted in Iraqi and international
public opinion turning against the American forces stationed in that country.
76The Indian army, following Kautilya and Kamandaka, believes that no insurgency can be settled by military force alone. Rather,
the
application of military force should prepare the ground for holding elections that will result in the formation of a democratic
government.
77 Harjeet Singh opines that insurgency cannot be defeated or even contained by military power alone.
78 Depinder Singh notes in his autobiography: ‘I was quite clear in my mind that no insurgency has ever been or can ever be
settled militarily. Therefore, a political solution had to be found…. On the military plane we had to mount unrelenting pressure
against the insurgents to force them to negotiate at some point in the future.’
79 In fact, Chadha claims that the only solution to insurgency is a decentralized federal system in the spirit of self-governance.
80 W. Ladwig III claims that India’s flexibility and willingness to redefine internal borders and political arrangements in
order to satisfy the preservationist as well as the reformist goals of the insurgents, is praiseworthy.
81Nevertheless, COIN cannot be conducted without military coercion. The
Arthasastra tells us that military operations should be conducted taking into consideration
desa (terrain) and
kala (season). Kautilya notes that government troops should be ready to fight in mountainous or wooded regions and that they should
conduct operations with adequate flank guards and a reserve force stationed behind the attacking units. Nocturnal commando
attacks, says Kautilya, are to be launched in order to surprise the rebels.
82 The Indian army has recently accepted the doctrine: ‘Fight the guerrilla like a guerrilla’.
83 Rajesh Rajagolan writes that successful COIN requires small, highly mobile offensive patrolling units moving deep inside
guerrilla territory. Large-unit cordon and search operations are useless. In fact, moving large numbers of security forces
to the sensitive areas alerts the insurgents and allows them to escape the security cordon into the wilderness.
84 In 2004, an American analyst of COIN strategy in Iraq emphasized small-unit operations and careful intelligence work.
85Kautilya repeatedly emphasizes the need for integrating the views of different sorts of spies (roving spies, stationary spies,
double agents, etc.) and those of the state bureaucracy in order to generate a clear and unified picture of the intelligence
landscape. Interestingly, Caleb M. Bartley writes that Sun Tzu also emphasizes the importance of spies and psychological operations.
86 In 1970, Brigadier S. K. Sinha noted that sound intelligence is the bedrock for success in COIN operations.
87 Rajagopalan asserts that long-range patrols by small units are necessary in order to gather real-time intelligence about
the insurgents.
88 Similarly, Depinder Singh asserts that good and secure intelligence functioning is a force multiplier in COIN campaigns.
89Integration of the various intelligence agencies is something Indian military officers demand, but the Indian state is yet
to construct unified, integrated machinery for collating intelligence acquired from the various intelligence agencies. As
a result, the Indian COIN strategy suffers. For instance, one reason for the Sri Lankan imbroglio was the fact that the Research
and Analysis Wing and the Ministry of External Affairs intelligence agencies did not cooperate with the military intelligence
agency of the Indian army. The net result was that the IPKF remained in the dark about the strength and intentions of the
LTTE and the Sri Lankan armed forces.
90Al-Qaeda and the other successful terrorist networks around the world heavily utilize spies, and the focus is on human intelligence
(HUMINT).
91 Rather than technology, Kautilya focuses on HUMINT and urges that spies be conversant with the culture of the region in which
they are deployed. Jaswant Singh emphasizes:
India needs to reorganize, reorient and integrate its intelligence sources. It must also update its methodology. The technological
revolution underway since the last decade now provides the tools to acquire real-time intelligence of value and give time
to plan ahead. Electronic (ELINT) and Signal (SIGINT) intelligence has proved more reliable than simply the routine human
intelligence (HUMINT). That, however, does not in any sense dilute the primacy still accorded to HUMINT.
And for good reason, for besides being the oldest form, it is also of the most high value kind.
92
From both the British and Kautilya, independent India inherited a ‘divide and rule’ policy. In accordance with Kautilya’s
dictum, the Indian state followed
bheda against the insurgents. One example: in October 1968, encouraged by the Indian state, the Sema tribal Nagas broke from the
Naga Federal Government of Z. A. Phizo and made peace with the central government.
93 One strategy of the Indian state is to tire out insurgent militias by provoking internal strife and co-opting some members
of the
tanzeems.
94 In 2003, George Fernandez, the defence minister in the BJP’s government, initiated a project within the Defence Ministry
aimed at inculcating Kautilya’s
kutayuddha as part and parcel of India’s unconventional warfare strategy. Fernandez went on record saying that Kautilya’s principles
should be followed much more systematically when fighting insurgents.
95To sum up, the Hindu ethic made India’s COIN policy somewhat humane. As a point of comparison, one author argues that the
Protestant ethic (emphasizing chivalry, individual sensibilities, etc.) shaped the British COIN policy of using only minimum
force against insurgents during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By contrast, the Calvinist values of the Americans
indirectly emphasized brutality in American COIN policy.
96
On 25 April 1947, Gandhi declared: ‘I hold that he who invented the atom bomb has committed the gravest sin in the world of
science. The only weapon that can save the world is non-violence.’
97 On August 1948, the Atomic Energy Commission of India was set up, with Homi Bhabha, a nuclear physicist, as the first chairman.
In 1974, India blasted a nuclear device at Pokhran but did not follow up. India conducted a series of
five nuclear tests at Pokhran in Rajasthan on 11 and 13 May 1998. In response, on 28 and 30 May 1998, at Chagai Hills in Baluchistan,
Pakistan conducted a series of nuclear tests.
There has always been a pro-bomb lobby and an anti-bomb lobby in India comprised of intellectuals, politicians, bureaucrats
and scientists. The anti-bomb lobby pointed to the economic burden of becoming a nuclear power as well as to Nehruvian internationalism
and the Gandhian ideology of non-violence. The pro-bomb lobby in the 1960s pointed to the threat from China. By the late 1980s,
in addition to China, India also faced a nuclear threat from Pakistan. From the 1990s, the pro-bomb lobby has had two wings.
The moderate wing influenced by Kenneth Waltz (proliferation results in deterrence stability) believes that a small number
of nuclear weapons in the hands of India would stabilize the regional scenario.
98 The extreme/radical wing demands a triad (nuclear weapons–equipped air, land and sea-based platforms) in order to achieve
great power status. The two immediate factors behind the 1998 tests were Western (especially American) diplomatic pressure
for signing NPT and CTBT, and the rise of the BJP to power. At present, the moderate pro-bomb lobby is pressing for a minimum
deterrent, while the extreme wing of the pro-bomb lobby advocates developing a credible deterrent and overt weaponization.
Kanti P. Bajpai, in one article, analyzes the Hindu roots behind the BJP’s ideology. The ideological father figure of the
BJP is M. S. Golwalker. His view of inter-state relations is similar to the Hobbesian/Darwinian realist interpretation. Golwalker,
following Kautilya and the
Panchatantra, believed that in this world there are no permanent friends but only permanent enemies. Alliance with strong powers will
result in enslavement. Hence, in order to survive, a nation must be strong and self-reliant. With Pakistan in mind, Golwalker
said that it is always the Muslim who strikes first and it is the Hindu who bears the brunt.
99In Stephen P. Cohen’s analysis, the BJP’s bomb programme is a product of domestic politics. Cohen writes:
One of the major reasons why the BJP and many secular Indians supported a nuclear weapons programme was to destroy the image
of India as a “Gandhian” or non-violent country. More practically, the BJP sought to undo Nehru’s legacy,
with its emphasis on disarmament, peace talks, and its special opposition to nuclear weapons. By supporting the very weapons
that the Congress party of Nehru and Gandhi had for so long opposed, the BJP was attempting to redefine India’s political
identity along new lines.
100
Jaswant Singh critiques the INC’s nuclear policy by saying that for thirty years (1969 to 1999) an overtly moralistic but
simultaneously ambiguous nuclear policy and self-restraint have paid no measurable dividends.
101 Similarly, Raja Mohan praises the BJP’s 1998 decision to go for nuclear blasts and simultaneously offers a critique of the
INC’s (especially the Nehruvian) nuclear policy:
Thanks to India’s nuclear vacillations in the 1960s, India found itself outside the NPT, which by the turn of the millennium
had near universal membership barring India, Israel and Pakistan. India’s refusal to sign the treaty had little to do with
the in-built discrimination in the NPT, an argument that Indians would go hoarse in presenting the world and themselves….
If India had conducted a nuclear test before the treaty was drafted, it would have automatically become a nuclear weapon power
like China. Having failed to test in time, India had no option but to stay out if it wanted to preserve its nuclear option….
With the nuclear tests of May 1998, Delhi ended the self-created confusion about its nuclear status.
102
At present, the anti-nuclear lobby in India, influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s
ahimsa philosophy, wants India to sign the CTBT and to stop testing and weaponizing nukes.
103 The Noble prize–winning Indian economist Amartya Sen notes: ‘Nuclear restraint strengthens rather than weakens India’s voice….
But making nuclear bombs, not to mention deploying them, and spending scarce resource on missiles and what is euphemistically
called “delivery” can hardly be seen as sensible policy.’
104Bharat Karnad, a hyper-realist, asserts that
ahimsa is not integral to Hinduism. Rather, true Hinduism, he says, like the military officer Nehra, is aggressive and ultra-realist.
He believes that nuclear weapons (
brahmastra in
Mahabharata) are weapons for winning a war and not merely symbolic ‘dangerous toys’ for gaining political prestige and deterring potential
enemies.
105 He writes:
… the Hinduism of the
vedas – the ancient Sanskrit texts that are the wellsprings of the Indic religion and culture, far from inculcating passivity,
is suffused with the spirit of adventure and daring, of flamboyance and vigour, and of uninhibited use of force to overcome
any resistance or obstacles…. These texts also conceptualize a Hindu
Machtpolitik that is at once intolerant of any opposition, driven to realize the goal of supremacy for the nation and State by means fair
and foul, and is breathtaking in its amorality.
106
Post-1998 India’s nuclear policy also receives praise from Raja Mohan: ‘As a nuclear power India becomes stronger economically
and acquires greater confidence in pursuing its manifest destiny on the global stage, the
moralpolitik that overwhelmed the public discourse for decades has given some space to
realpolitik…. India has begun to rediscover the roots of realist statecraft in its own long history.’
107 Raja Mohan goes on to say that for all the claims that India has always represented the idealist traditions of foreign policy,
its own texts –
Mahabharata,
Panchatantra and
Arthasastra – are steeped in an appreciation of power politics.
108Jaswant Singh believes that a nuclear-equipped China has surrounded India on all sides. In the north, nuclear-tipped ballistic
missiles stationed in Tibet target India. In the west, Pakistan is China’s ally. And in the south, in the Indian Ocean, China
maintains submarines equipped with ballistic missiles. And Burma (Myanmar) in India’s east is also an ally of China.
109 In his eyes, China, like a
vijigishu of Kautilya’s paradigm, is following
mandala policy in order to contain India. The effective response for India could be to adopt a counter-
mandala policy in order to break out of China’s encirclement.
Both Karnad and Raja Mohan, like Jaswant Singh, favor using the realist
kutayuddha tradition when conducting nuclear diplomacy. Karnad asserts that India needs a strategic nuclear arsenal in order to deter
foreign countries from intervening in its internal affairs. In his framework, the United States poses a latent threat, and
China is the more immediate and principal threat. Karnad wants India to follow the Kautilyan dictum: ‘My enemy’s enemy is
my friend’. He notes that just as China has armed Pakistan with conventional and nuclear weapons in order to distract and
deter India, India should arm Vietnam with strategic nuclear weapons in order to threaten China’s position in Southeast Asia.
An Indian presence in Southeast Asia would also neutralize China’s position in Myanmar. If
necessary, India should cooperate with the United States to aid Taiwan in order to threaten Beijing.
110In a similar vein, Raja Mohan writes that Bhisma, the great grandee in the
Mahabharata, preached to the victorious Pandavas at the end of a great destructive war on the essence of alliances. For Bhisma, there
is no condition that permanently deserves the name of either friendship or hostility. Both friends and foes arise from considerations
of interest and gain. Friendship can turn into enmity in the course of time, and a foe can become a friend. It is the force
of circumstances that creates friends and foes.
111Neo-realist nuclear theorists like Karnad and Raju G. C. Thomas are wary of any intimate relationship with the United States.
Somewhat influenced by
Panchatantra, they accept that real friendship can occur only among the equals. However, in the changed circumstances, limited cooperation
with the world’s sole superpower is necessary.
112 To an extent, India seems to be following the policy of cooperating with the United States in order to balance China. For
example, despite India’s traditional good relations with Iran, in 2005 India voted with the United States at the IAEA Board
of Governors meeting to declare Iran to be noncompliant with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
113In 1999, nuclear weapons–equipped India and Pakistan came very close to war at Kargil. Mohammed Ayoob claims that Pakistan’s
test firing of an intermediate-range Ghauri missile (range 1,500 km) on 6 April 1998 was the immediate trigger that led to
India’s second series of nuclear tests at Pokhran.
114 In 1998, Pakistan got the medium-range No Dong missile from North Korea and renamed it the Ghauri. This missile was named
after Muhammad Ghori, the ruler of Ghor in Afghanistan, who repeatedly invaded Rajput-dominated India during the late twelfth
century. Pakistan’s other missile, the Abdali, was named after an Afghan ruler who invaded Mughal India in the first half
of the eighteenth century. The nomenclature of the weaponry accumulating in Pakistan thus keeps
alive, on both sides, vengeful and largely mythologized memories from earlier periods.
115Pakistan is the only Muslim state with a nuclear capability. This fact heightens the prestige of Pakistan in the anti-Western
Muslim world.
116 The crisis at Kargil erupted when Pakistan send 3–4,000 soldiers of the Northern Light Infantry (henceforth NLI) across the
line of control (LOC) to the Kargil-Drass region. The military planners at Islamabad thought that due to Pakistan’s possession
of nuclear weapons, India would not dare to launch a massive conventional attack along the LOC, unlike the situation, in 1965.
They calculated that after consolidating the Kargil heights, Pakistan would be able to internationalize the Kashmir issue
and negotiate with India from a position of strength.
117 Initially, Pakistan maintained the fiction that these intruders were
mujahideens fighting for the liberation of Kashmir from ‘Hindu’ India’s yoke. The war was fought for two months at altitudes ranging
from 12,000 to 17,000 feet.
118 In 1999, unlike in 1965, India did not escalate horizontally by launching attacks elsewhere along the LOC but did initiate
vertical escalation at Kargil by using artillery and airpower to evict the ‘intruders’.
119 Most of the NLI personnel were armed with rifles, machine-guns and light mortars (81-mm). They were not equipped with heavy
weapons suitable for major offensive operations.
120 On 7 June 1999, India’s 56th Brigade, supported by Bofors howitzers counter-attacked the heights of Tololing.
121 By July, due to intervention by the United States and Indian military pressure, the intruders retreated from Kargil.
As regards the future of India’s nuclear programme, Cohen concludes that India went for the bomb for reasons of ‘national
prestige’. India’s
‘trophy’ nuclear arsenal will not deter China, nor will it solve the conundrum vis-à-vis Pakistan regarding Kashmir. Cohen
goes on to say that just as India was never entirely ‘Gandhian,’ it has not entirely rejected the Mahatma. Gandhi argued that
Indians have a special obligation to resist evil by nonviolent means; the greatest sin for Gandhi was the use of violence.
If the development of an Indian nuclear weapon fails to provide security against putative threats from Pakistan, China, and
the United States, then enthusiasm for its development and deployment will wane. The nuclear advocates will have to continually
jack up the external threat in order to win support for additions to the nuclear arsenal and argue that there is no other
way to resist this ‘international evil.’ Furthermore, if non-nuclear threats continue to increase, whether in the form of
international pressure or terrorism, Indians will have to examine the relevance of nuclear weapons to threats that must be
‘resisted,’ in Gandhian terms.
122