Indian Army in the coming decade: Role, Threats and Challenges

In the post-war period, the Indian Army has emerged as one of the most combat tested armies in the world. It has fought five intense conventional military conflicts (four with Pakistan and one with China). It graduated from the phase of tactical wars in the post-independence era, to the level of Operational Art in the 1965 war with Pakistan. It demonstrated its abilities to wage a near total war in 1971. In fact its professional high water mark came with the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, when for the first time after the Second World War it created a new nation state with the force of arms. In a spectacular Blitzkrieg, in just 14 action packed days the Indian formations raced for Dacca, the Pakistani Army in the East surrendered and 93,000 prisoners of war were taken. It was a text book, tri-service campaign that resulted in a historic victory. The Indian Army has been equally successful in the genre of Low-Intensity Conflicts (LIC) and has tamed several insurgencies in the North-East (in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram Tripura and Assam) as also vicious terrorist movements in Punjab and J&K.

The Indian Army is currently in the midst of a period of tremendous doctrinal ferment and change that involves the redefinition of roles in a strategically altered context. Post nuclearisation, South Asia is confronted with what Chris Gagne has called the “Stability- Instability Paradox”. Nuclear parity has resulted in increasing violations of the status quo at the sub-conventional level via the unceasing proxy war in J&K and now asymmetric assaults in our metropolitan centres. The Indian Army will have to crystallise its role in deterring such sub-conventional assaults by rapidly fielding dominant war-fighting capabilities that actually serve to deter. It will have to fashion a doctrine for Limited War against a nuclear backdrop and generate viable proactive options that can raise the cost for sub-conventional assaults on Indian cities and citizens.

So far all the insurgencies and terrorist movements that the Army had to deal with were in the “Rim-land” or Border Provinces of the North-East or in the Punjab and J&K. Serious existential security threats are now emerging in the Indian “Heartland” in the form of left-wing extremism. This is a heartland and not a rim-land insurgency. It is noteworthy that almost 85 per cent of India’s tribal population lives in this region. It would be equally useful to remember that just 12 per cent of our tribal population lives in the jungles of the North-East. They had rebelled in 1956 and it has taken us some five decades to bring the situation under control. The implications of a rebellion by 85 per cent of our tribal population can be imagined. Obviously the Indian Army is not keen to get involved as such tasks will draw it far away from the borders it is tasked to defend. However if the police and Central police organisations are not able to stem the Red Tide, the Rashtriya Rifles (which is the internal security component of the Army) will have to be deployed. Seeing the adverse casualty ratio between the police/CPOs and the Naxals for the last three years, this may have to take place much sooner than was envisaged. Can the Army  afford to let the house burn down completely before it intervenes?

Urban jihadi terrorism in the major Indian cities is also a heartland phenomena. What will be the role of the Indian Army in future Mumbais? Will its combat power be wasted in the outer cordons while the NSG (whose core are military personnel) is whistled in after a time lag of 10 or more hours? The Indian Army has very successfully tackled terrorism in Punjab and J&K. There is no reason why garrison battalions cannot respond successfully in such scenarios. Consigning the prime combat power of the nation to hold the outer cordon while new police organisations are raised to tackle such threats is a waste of national resources.
 

In the decade ahead the Indian Army will equally have to be prepared for undertaking Out of Area contingencies in the arc from Central Asia, the Persian Gulf on to the Straits of Malacca or even against pirates off the Horn of Africa. It may have to intervene to extricate the Indian Diaspora or safeguard vital national interests in the arc from Aden to Singapore.

Then there is the long term threat from China. The Indian media has laid an exaggerated emphasis on China’s tactical intrusions on the land border. Far more crucial and largely overlooked, are the strategic intrusions that China has made into India’s strategic backyard in South Asia. Both India and China need peaceful peripheries for their economic development. Unfortunately China’s “String of Pearls Strategy” has encouraged Pakistan to act as a proxy and regional surrogate for China. By its incessant asymmetric attacks, Pakistan has done its best to deny India this peaceful periphery and constrain it within the scaffolding of South Asia.

At the grand strategic level, India is in a two-front situation with China to its North and Pakistan to its West. Internal security is fast becoming a third front (or half front). It would be imperative for security planners to ensure that India deals with such threats sequentially and not concurrently. That should be the essence of any Indian grand strategy. That translates into a rapid buildup of war-fighting capabilities in time to deal proactively with threats. This process will have to be speeded up. Indian security planners will have to devise national timelines by which to resolve these threats by military, quasi-military, or non-military (diplomatic, peaceful or economic means).

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).