https://thewire.in/security/india-moves-from-retaliation-to-restraint-in-its-post-operation-sindoor-doctrine

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/op-sindoor-2-india-must-not-hanker

In the immediate aftermath of Op Sindoor, India perhaps for the first time articulated a strategic doctrine, adopting as the ‘new normal,’ swift and sure retaliation to Pakistani terror provocations. Not only have pronouncements been aplenty since, but military activity has also picked up. On the face of it, it would appear that a radical disjuncture has been brought about by Op Sindoor.

Understandably then, a recent commentary , predicting an opportunity for peacemaker Trump to tote up his Nobel chances, cries ‘Wolf!.’ The author thinks that in the next round the Indians, believing that the nuclear card is Pakistan’s way of instigating American peace initiatives, are likely to go for objectives across the Line of Control (LC). To him, this could lead up to ‘uncontrolled escalation.’ How real is the danger?

The doctrinal shift

An imagined strategic continuum has a defensive segment at one end and compellence at the other, with deterrence in-between. The deterrence segment can be further split into two - defensive deterrence and offensive deterrence. Prevailing in war involves compellence.

Over the years, India has moved from the defensive segment, where it was in Nehruvian India, to defensive deterrence under his more combative daughter, Indira Gandhi. But, the hangover from General Sundarji’s days of mechanised warfare simulation is long over. Limited War thinking dawned close on the heels of nuclearisation, with the Kargil War. In its wake, the cold start doctrine was whistled up.

The wellsprings of the doctrinal makeover lay in three sources. At the external level, Pakistan - instrumentalising Kashmir - remained a problem. Tackling it in the nuclear era involved pulling one’s punches. Thus, the doctrine posited several limited-depth offensives from a ‘cold start’ across a wide front.

At the internal level, riding on the back of an economy unleashed by liberalisation, India saw itself as an emerging power. Cultural nationalism, in its shaping of Indian strategic culture, infused an offensive content into the doctrine. During the Manmohan years the offensive content provided cover for the parlays underway with Pakistan. Later, with the advent of the Modi, it was presented as the strategic shift, heralding rupture of his era with the past .

At the within-the-box organisational level, the military exerted to stay relevant in the nuclear era. It trimmed its sails, divining space below the nuclear threshold for use of force. It hoped to thereby deter Pakistani subconventional provocations, without itself provoking at the nuclear level.

India thus shifted from a strategic doctrine of defensive deterrence based on a combination of denial (defensive battle) and punishment (strike corps counter offensives) towards offensive deterrence (proactive offensive).

Over the three terms of this regime, the strategic shift appears to have run its course. Not only has India responded to terror provocations by military action thrice over, but after Op Sindoor, claims to have upped its act. Its newly minted strategic doctrine collapses terror perpetrators with state sponsors and promises reflexive retribution. Evidently the two previous reprisal surgical strikes did not work. It is moot whether this formulation would signify a transit into compellence.

The gingerly conduct of Op Sindoor itself has pointers on strategic restraint continuing: petitioning Pakistan in wake of the terror camp strike; keeping own air out of action for three crucial days; and throwing in a parting punch, after knowing the Americans had already corralled Pakistan. More recently, official reticence was visible in the two days it took to officially recognise the recent Delhi blast as a terror incident.

The next round

While India dallied for two decades over Cold Start-ordained Integrated Battle Group (IBG) activation, Pakistan went ahead with tactical nukes and nuclear doctrinal moves. Almost in acknowledgement, Op Sindoor was altogether kept a stand-off engagement. Further, post Op Sindoor, the move is towards a scaled down version of IBGs, comprising Bhairavs, Rudras and Shaktibaans. It is apparent, while earlier India stepped back from corps level offensives, now it has done so also from sub-divisional-sized IBGs, in favour of mini-IBGs.

Noteworthy is the critique of IBGs that they signify an inability to work with an Order of Battle. Formations and units are available for operational tasking as per the flow of a campaign. What then is the necessity for objective-specific IBGs answering to a chain of command through the threat of a confidential report? What happens to IBGs after first phase objectives? Do sanskritic nouns function as force multipliers? Aware of its limitations, India appears to have settled for bites instead of mouthfuls, nibbles instead of chunks of enemy territory and fighting capacity.

Fortuitously, this is all for the good since the nuclear factor has taken to looming larger. It has acquired formidable portents with President Trump’s ‘favourite field marshal’ taking control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, one which Trump alleges continues to be polished up.

This year’s biggest military exercise was in wake of Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh’s mentions of Karachi and Sindh. Anyone would believe that an exercise that featured a Rudra brigade being put through its paces and an amphibious landing must indicate intent to follow through on Singh’s threats. However, the exercise had no mention of any nuclear angle. Instead the usual desultory practice of decontamination drills, carrying a hint of the nuclear backdrop sensitivity, were instead practiced in another - multinational - exercise.

This can imply three things: one, the use of the Rudra brigade suggests India does not intend to trigger any redlines; two, a more ambitious capability demonstrated through the amphibious landing, is to deter Munir from upping the conventional ante; and, three, absence of the nuclear angle suggests a belief that Pakistani symmetric escalation is stayed by a strengthened Indian Triad.

Dangers arise if India finds itself wrong on any of the three counts. One, the escalatory quotient in use of Bhairavs and Rudras depends on the objectives set. If on the LC, the objectives are proxy war and defensive posture relevant, it would not be escalatory. However, those that lend an offensive advantage could lower the other’s redlines. Bhairav’s launched elsewhere across the border can also instigate escalation.

Two, the new Chief of Defence Forces Munir’s propensity to hold out may lead to components intended to signal escalation dominance - such as the amphibious elements - getting sucked into the fight. Also, mission creep, inadvertence and accidents do happen.

Finally, Munir’s bombast of taking ‘half the world down’ with him is plausible not only because of what Pakistan would do with its nuclear weapons, but equally in light of the promise in the Indian nuclear doctrine of massive retaliation.

These are unintended outcomes that India ought to avoid. It must be cautious against venturing past offensive deterrence into compellence. This is not a tall order for a regime that reckons its not an era of war. It must be receptive to third party off-ramps. With peace deals reckoning with underlying causes of war as much as proximate ones, it must know that Kashmir will figure on the negotiation table, especially in case of nuclear clouds.

Consequently, its best that where a teaser will do, don’t hanker after a trailer, and where a trailer is enough, just forget the movie.

https://m.thewire.in/article/caste/why-the-indian-military-cant-ignore-questions-on-representation-anymore

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/how-right-is-rahul-gandhi-on-the

How right is Rahul Gandhi on the Indian military and ‘the 10 per cent’?

Recently Rahul Gandhi held that 10 per cent of India’s population has control of the military, saying, “They (forward castes) have control over the army…And the 90% population (the rest) — you will not find them anywhere.”

While he may be wrong in the details, he is right - if prematurely so - on the essentials, since the ‘control’ is a work-in-progress, set to culminate when Agnipath changes the complexion of India’s army.

The Agnipath scheme is designed to get two birds with one stone. It has in its sights a deflation of the ‘martial races’ and ethnic groups of marginalized communities that have been advantaged by the class proportions (single or fixed) incident in some regiments.

The Agnipath scheme enables a rewind to the halcyon days of the purabiya sepoys, when forward castes formed the mainstay of the army prior to the upheaval of 1857. It will also re-affix the martial races into their place lower down in the social pyramid, while reinserting the marginalized back at the bottom.

The capture is incipient

Ideally, a federal polity of an ethnically diverse democratic state ought to have equitable representation from all its constituent regions and communities. Though India has been well served by a democratically subordinate professional military thus far, for the army to reflect India’s diversity would only be healthy into a fraught future.

For now, there is a regional, ethnic and religious imbalance in numbers within the army. On this the Agnipath scheme, now facing its first turn-over in inductees of four years back, only flatters to please.

Agnipath moves the recruiting paradigm from ethnically based recruiting to an ‘all India, all caste’ system. This undercuts the advantages the communities with an ethnic-based pass into the army had, either as so-called martial races or the carve outs for the marginalized groups, who were also accorded space within the army, such as Muslims, Ahirs, Mazhabi Sikhs and Mahars.

A second feature of Agnipath, brought in after its advent, is that the recruitment process now features the written test being taken by candidates prior to the physical tests. This advantages educationally forward communities, while downgrading the prospects of those traditionally signing up to the military in whom brawn supersedes much else.

The lack of diversity

Regional diversity is only of token proportions. It is well known that north India is well represented while the south and east are under-represented. Of the 331 commissioned in June 2023, 153 were from the cow belt, while only 28 were southerners. Curiously, of 11 from the north east, 8 were from Arunachal. It’s the relative absence of marginalized ethnic and social groups from the military that is concerning.

As for religious diversity, the relative absence of Muslims in relation to their country wide presence and proportion in the wider population is example. The numbers of Muslim officers once used to be at two per cent. The latest combined merit list for the National Defence Academy and the Naval Academy has 7 Muslim in a list of over 700. Since the two academies would at best take in some 500, merely 4 would likely make it gauging from their ranks obtained, which makes for all of 1 per cent.

Before Agnipath created an unthought-through problem for Nepalis in the army, Nepali Gorkhas were double in number than India’s own Muslims. Clearly, when the army declined to share numbers on the Sachar committee’s request, it was but hiding an embarrassing reality.

In terms of caste, fine-grained figures are unavailable. Reasonably, castes answering as warriors that include ‘martial races’ such as the Rajput, Sikhs, Dogras, Marathas and Jats are well represented. To these communities can be added a smattering of the upper rung of Other Backward Castes, such as Yadavs.

The onset of the Agnipath undercuts the ‘martial races’ by threatening the regimental system. The deliberate obfuscation by the national security adviser on this question indicates eventual of evolution of the regimental system away from its ethnic rootedness.

With their respective proportions withdrawn, these communities would require banking on the showing of their youth in the common entrance tests. This will likely dilute their numbers, that were otherwise protected under the regimental system.

Another outcome will be the already negligible numbers of marginalised communities getting fewer.

But for a regiment having a fair percentage of Muslims from that region, Muslim numbers are negligible. Likewise, the Mahar regiment only incidentally boosts figures of Scheduled Caste presence. As for the Scheduled Tribes, but for the Bihar, Assam and Naga regiments, their presence too would be truncated.

Added to this must be the situation in the central police forces and the paramilitary. Even the Assam Rifles – sentinels of the North East – has a large proportion in its ranks of groups not from the North East. The central police forces tried increasing the presence of Muslims, but only momentarily. Today no records are released on such data, so it can be assumed that the situation of marginalized and minority group presence is rather low.

Only incidentally, some groups have been inducted, such as Naga hostiles being taken into army ranks from counter insurgency purposes. Likewise, some renegade militants were taken into the ‘home and hearth’ units of the Territorial Army and others into the hatchet wing of the Kashmir police. The numbers of Ladakhis in uniform went up after the Kargil War with Ladakh Scouts attaining regiment status. An effort to induct tribal communities from Central India is also on, but has counter insurgency motives as impetus.

Under the new recruiting process, those with better educational access gain an advantage, while those from peasant classes and rural areas - the mainstay of soldiery so far - and the educationally backward communities – who are likely more robust physically - are liable to be left behind. The new-found need for a tech-enabled work force busts the earlier logic that high altitude deployments necessitated a younger, more robust profile in the soldiery.

A political consideration

That a federal democracy must have a military reflecting its diversity appears a no-brainer. What’s certain is there is no conscious policy on diversification flowing from a belief that a composition reflective of the lived reality in India would be healthy for democracy.

Absence of numbers in the open domain restricts logical, reasoned and credible consideration of this vexed question. The higher purpose of maintaining India as a federal democracy and making it more socially equitable requires security forces to be open to scrutiny.

The military will claim it is not in national interest to reveal such numbers. It would cite the potential for such numbers to become a political football. Taking the military’s reservations onboard, the exercise can be kept in-house, either in a blue-ribbon commission or closed-door sittings of the relevant parliamentary committee. This governments record of ‘surgical strikes’ on the nation, that included Agnipath, indicates that an off-the-radar consideration is possible.

If the impending caste census were to keep security forces out of its purview, it can only be a sub-optimal exercise. The monies that go into the security sector in terms of pay, pension, perks and privileges, will flow to communities advantaged by the Agnipath scheme. It would serve to strengthen their position in the caste pyramid. A more equitable spread – what the caste census is intended to bring about - calls for holistic stocktaking.

Given the regime’s propensity to support ‘control’ of the military by the ’10 per cent’, there is a need for a concerted thrust to broaden its recruiting profile to include all regions and communities. Current conditions of educational deficits in most communities as against the forward caste advantages preclude ‘All India, All Class’ and meritocratic dogmatism.

Scope for state or district-wise reservations – as indeed is historically the case with the Indian army – needs to be built in. Indeed, grapevine has it that even as the regimental system is tinkered with, it might yet retain some of the proportions of martial classes; which shouldn’t surprise since they also stand second in the social heirarchy as the warrior class.

A narrowed catchment area is undesirable in country of continental size in terms of population and landmass. The aim must be to eventually erase the concerning and unrecognized reality of ‘stacking’ in India, wherein, of some 750 districts over 80 per cent of recruitment is from just over a 100 districts (impressionistic figures).

An undesirable political implication is that potentially a particular political ideology might find its way into the military if the mainstay of recruiting is from the Gangetic belt, where such ideology holds sway.

Alongside, ahead is also a likely dwindling in political power of regions as southern India brought on by a post-census delimitation of parliamentary constituencies. This would weaken any counter balancing heft of the south within the military. A north-dominated military would also constrain the south in maintaining an ethnic balance of power across the subcontinental landmass.

An operational implication is in regard to the military’s showing in internal conflict situations. Prejudices – such as the islamophobia fanned by politicos – can only have a baleful affect. The popularity within the military and the veteran community of the notion that the surgical strike on Article 370 was altogether a good thing is a case to point.

Rahul Gandhi gets it right

To dismiss Rahul Gandhi’s statement cavalierly is par for the thrust and parry of politics, intended to deny him credibility in keeping with the ‘pappu’ canard.

Understandably, the military’s political master does not want to put his hand into what promises to be beehive. However, the military would do well to introspect. If it does not course correct autonomously, it would only prove the point that Gandhi makes, that it already stands corralled by a certain ‘10 per cent’.

An internal inquiry getting to grips with the data is the start point. While its right-wing inclined veterans will likely raise a ruckus as the caste count looms, the military would prove befitting of a democratic state if it furnishes its figures for informing the caste census.

The claim that it has no records on religion is hogwash. How else does it know if it has to bury a member or place a body on a pyre? It must realise that one among the ninepins, it cannot but fall, as have others listed by Rahul Gandhi, “... only 10 per cent of the country’s population (i.e., the ‘upper castes’) get opportunities in corporate sectors, bureaucracy, and the judiciary....”

A reckonable outcome is desirable given the current-day discussion surrounding inequality. Social and economic inequality is already self-evident. Political inequality is set to grow, in case inability to control population growth is rewarded with parliamentary seats.

What currently appears as Gandhi’s tilting at the windmills requires a holistic broad-front approach. Holy cows as the corporate sector and the military cannot be ‘left out of battle’ on the major political question in the life of the Republic.