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Kalyanaraman Reviewof Arjun Subramaniam Indias Wars AMilitary History

Arjun Subramaniam's book, 'India’s Wars: A Military History, 1947–1971,' provides a comprehensive overview of India's military operations from the Kashmir conflict to the Bangladesh Liberation War. The reviewer, Sankaran Kalyanaraman, critiques Subramaniam's interpretations and conclusions, particularly regarding the integration of Indian National Army personnel and the strategic decisions during the 1962 and 1965 wars. Despite these critiques, the book is recognized as a valuable resource for understanding India's military history and is likely to inspire further exploration in the field.

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4 views7 pages

Kalyanaraman Reviewof Arjun Subramaniam Indias Wars AMilitary History

Arjun Subramaniam's book, 'India’s Wars: A Military History, 1947–1971,' provides a comprehensive overview of India's military operations from the Kashmir conflict to the Bangladesh Liberation War. The reviewer, Sankaran Kalyanaraman, critiques Subramaniam's interpretations and conclusions, particularly regarding the integration of Indian National Army personnel and the strategic decisions during the 1962 and 1965 wars. Despite these critiques, the book is recognized as a valuable resource for understanding India's military history and is likely to inspire further exploration in the field.

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Prakhar Rajput
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Book Review: Arjun Subramaniam, India’s Wars: A Military History, 1947–1971

Article · July 2017

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India’s Wars: A Military History, 1947–1971,
by Arjun Subramaniam, Noida: Harper Collins, 2016, pp. 562, Rs. 799

S. Kalyanaraman*

In this first of two volumes, Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam offers
excellent and concise histories of India’s wars and military operations,
starting with the rescue and partial liberation of Jammu and Kashmir
in 1947-48 from depredating Pakistani irregulars and ending with the
1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan’s genocidal
rule. Based on published material available, and supplementing it with
interviews, Subramaniam’s India’s Wars provides a layered perspective
on the strategic, operational and tactical aspects of these wars and
operations. While one agrees to a great extent with what the book has to
say about the various land, air and naval campaigns, there are inevitable
differences in perspectives, interpretations and nuances on specific issues.
To begin with, Subramaniam observes that officers and personnel
of the Indian National Army (INA) were not integrated in the post-
independent Indian military because of a quid pro quo between British
and Indian leaders: the British would treat INA personnel on trial
leniently in return for Indian leaders not integrating them into the
Indian Army. This is a false linkage. There need not be any doubt about
the sincerity of Mountbatten’s advice to Nehru, cited in the book, about
the importance of having officers who remain loyal to their oath and to
the government in power. It is practical advice, not necessarily driven by
ulterior motives or disenchantment with those who joined the INA. And

* The reviewer is Research Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New
Delhi.

ISSN 0976-1004 print


© 2017 Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
Journal of Defence Studies, Vol. 11, No. 3, July–September 2017, pp. 99–103
100 Journal of Defence Studies

that conclusion is reinforced by the views expressed by senior officers


whom Subramaniam cites, such as Lieutenant General (Lt Gen) W.A.G.
Pinto, who too held reservations about INA colleagues going against
the basic tenets of soldiering such as loyalty and allegiance. According
to Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, the non-integration of INA personnel
contributed to cementing the loyalties of mainstream officers to the
government and established civil–military relations on a sound footing.
With reference to the 1962 war, Subramaniam offers the usual
critique of the so-called ‘forward policy’. But the question that no critic
of that policy has answered satisfactorily is this: what should India have
done to assert its territorial claim and mark its presence in these areas
once the disagreement arose over the boundary? Was there any alternative
to the forward policy except to concede the Chinese contention that
the entire border was a British imperial imposition on a weak China
and open fresh negotiations? Analysts point to Lt Gen S.P.P. Thorat’s
plan, which called for the army to hold a series of vital points located
tens of kilometres away from the border that were more defensible both
tactically and in terms of maintainability by road or air. While Thorat’s
plan was indeed a sensible one, it catered for a situation involving open
war. But open war was not the problem that confronted India at that
time; it was only a latent possibility. In any event, the Indian leadership
believed that war was unlikely due to geopolitical reasons (described
later) and could be avoided by crafting a calibrated policy. Instead, the
main problem was what to do to prevent Chinese encroachment and
occupation of territory south of the McMahon Line in which there
was practically no Indian presence. Locating troops in strength tens of
kilometres away from the border, as suggested by Thorat, would lead to a
large area being left without any presence and thus vulnerable to Chinese
encroachment and occupation—precisely the scenario that the leadership
was intent upon preventing. Thorat himself admitted that ‘small-scale
penetrations’, which were ‘inevitable’ in the early stages of war due to
such a positioning of Indian forces, ‘will have great demoralising effect
on the country’s morale and may embarrass the government’.1Arguably,
the army could have exploited the situation arising from the advancing
People’s Liberation Army’s extended lines of communication to drive
it back across the McMahon Line. But what if there was no war and
Chinese troops simply encroached upon and occupied these areas? Such
an outcome would still demoralise national morale and embarrass the
government. Given this, the Indian leadership chose to distribute troops
Book Review 101

in penny packets in the entire territory claimed.


A related assertion by Subramaniam is that Leftist influence
convinced the Indian leadership that China was neither interested in
nor capable of contesting the forward policy. He offers no evidence in
support of this assertion. Contrary to his claim, the assumption about
China not embarking upon war at that point in time was derived from a
consideration of geopolitical factors, which included China’s antagonistic
relationships with America and its allies as well as its widening rift
with the Soviet Union. That is, however, not to mean that the Indian
leadership’s conclusion about China not initiating war was correct. It
obviously was not! But the point is that a critique should be based on
sound logic and verifiable facts.
With respect to the 1965 war, Subramaniam asserts that India
operated on the assumption that another Kashmir war with Pakistan
would remain localised and confined to that state. On the contrary, it
was Indian military strategy since the early 1950s not to keep the next
war in Kashmir confined to the state where the mountainous terrain
and lines of communication favoured Pakistan and where undertaking
an offensive and achieving victory was likely to involve a hard and long
slog by a large quantum of troops. Instead, India’s military strategy, as
approved by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, was to expand the
war into the Punjab theatre if Pakistan were to attempt to wrest Kashmir.
The Indian Army’s war plans were based on such an understanding of
a future war with Pakistan. After the Kutch confrontation, the army
leadership tweaked and adapted its plans dating back to the 1950s. That
is the provenance of Operation Riddle executed during the 1965 war.
On the Simla negotiations, which brought the 1971 war to an
end, Subramaniam refers to the conventional understanding that
India failed to exploit the 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war it held for
securing a settlement on Kashmir along the Line of Control because of
Zulfiqar Bhutto’s shrewdness and Indira Gandhi’s magnanimity. This
conventional understanding is, first, based on an inadequate appreciation
of the extent of India’s victory. India won a decisive victory only in the
Bangladesh theatre. In fact, the Indian war effort was mainly concentrated
on the Bangladesh front. In the western theatre, its effort was marked
by an offensive–defensive approach aimed at attaining small tactical
gains and preventing major losses of territory. In other words, India
did not aim for nor gain a major victory in the western theatre, which
was (and is) the economic, military and ideological centre of gravity of
102 Journal of Defence Studies

Pakistan. As a result, all that it could actually aspire for and attain in
the negotiations was to lock in the result of the war on the Bangladesh
front. The principal challenge before India was to obtain Pakistan’s
formal recognition of Bangladesh and thus cement the outcome of the
war, as well as ensure that the new country got off to a sound start with a
stable government headed by an established and popular leader. Second,
the Indian leadership also aspired to dilute Pakistan’s hostility towards
India and establish bilateral relations on a stable foundation. And for
that, it was necessary not to heap humiliation upon Pakistan but treat
it honourably. Hence, the decision to repatriate the prisoners of war was
partly to ensure that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was in Pakistani
custody and had been awarded a death sentence, was released unharmed
and partly to re-establish India–Pakistan relations on a stable and non-
antagonistic foundation.
In his conclusion, Subramaniam asserts that India had a pacifist
strategic orientation until Indira Gandhi discovered war as a proactive
tool of statecraft. Many counter-examples readily come to mind: the
horizontal escalation of the war in 1965; liberation of Goa; integration of
Hyderabad; mobilisation of the army to coerce Pakistan during the 1951
crisis; and the military rescue and partial liberation of Kashmir in 1947–
48. Even the forward policy was an attempt to assert territorial claims
through military presence. All these examples do not indicate pacifism.
Subramaniam acknowledges some, not all, of these counter-examples but
casually dismisses them as not proactive applications of force. But wasn’t
the 1951 military mobilisation with the intent of coercing Pakistan a
proactive application of the threat of use of force? Wasn’t the liberation
of Goa proactive use of force to throw out a colonial power from Indian
territory? Did not the world accuse India of being hypocritical and
abandoning its non-violence legacy as a result of its use of force to liberate
Goa? Was not the horizontal escalation of the war in the Punjab theatre
proactive application of force especially when Pakistan desperately
wanted to confine the conflict to Kashmir? Did not the world condemn
India in 1965 for escalating the war beyond the ‘disputed’ territory of
Kashmir? In the light of all this, the argument that India had a pacifist
strategic culture before 1971 is nothing more than a caricature.
Notwithstanding the above critique, India’s Wars is indeed a valuable
book. It is not only a useful starting point for a new generation of readers
interested in military history but is also likely to serve as an updated work
for older generations of readers. Subramaniam’s contribution redresses,
Book Review 103

to an extent, the neglect of military history in India and will hopefully


spur others to tread the path he has blazed.

Note
1. S.P.P. Thorat, From Reveille to Retreat, New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1986,
p. 197.
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