Political careers of former soldiers may seem like an acceptable feature in a democracy, but it would be naive to discount the dangers of politicisation of the military.
Disenfranchisement by institutional fiat is profoundly undemocratic. The effect of the ECI's new documentary process in Bihar will tilt the scales in favour of the BJP.
Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.
India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.
Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.
India is a tale of missed opportunities beginning with 1947. It had to be with scoundrels like Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar and others at the helm who preferred to pluck low hanging fruit rather than create a powerful India. .
“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!'” ( John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) “Maud Muller)
What would a “ decisive conventional war “ against Pakistan have achieved ? And if India came close to “ winning “ it, however victory is defined, who would guarantee that it would remain conventional ? Although the standoff itself ended peacefully, we lost several soldiers, partly due to defective mines.
I wonder why the army doesn’t always train and keep prepared for war. Are they simply eating and sleeping in peacetime? Ridiculous excuses. Poor quality of army.
1971 example is a poor excuse and won’t work on the chinese border and not on the western border with pakistan.
Manekshaw himself said the pak army fought gallantly but the 1000 miles between east and west pak made losing inevitable for pak.
So 1971 is a very poor example, and it is already 50 years since 1971.
You cannot doubt that pak army will put up a strong fight and a poorly prepared indian army cannot cut it.
We have a first class Army and other armed forces. In terms of courage, fighting spirit and quality of junior (frontline) leadership our forces are second to none. The problem – to which Gen Panag alludes in his article – is the lack of a clear political objective, from which military goals for war can be set and thereafter appropriate equipment, training and plans can be developed to cater for different scenarios which may come to pass. This is a process where the political leadership is lacking as is the senior leadership of the armed forces. Another issue is that the top brass of the armed forces themselves – notably the Army and Air Force – are at loggerheads for petty reasons and are unable to put in place a unified structure whereby scare financial resources can be better used to equip efficiently on the basis of a joint doctrine. To cap it all, the only thing the bureaucracy of the MoD is good at is interminably delaying procurement. The political leadership has shown itself too weak and uninterested to cut through all this mess….. a surgical strike here or there for propaganda reasons seems to be good enough for them.
The last time India had a cohesive approach based on a clear political goal and well-set, well-coordinated military plans was in 1971. I do not say this as a BJP-Congress comparison by any means, but Indira Gandhi did an admirable job of melding together all strands of the nation’s power – diplomacy, intelligence work, the military and so on. The military leadership under General Maneckshaw and his counterparts in the IAF and the IN did a superb job together. The result was there for all to see.
Indeed, we lost an opportunity…. but not for the first or last time. Kargil in 1999 offered an even better opportunity to take back Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The world could see that it was Pakistan that had started the war by infiltrating soldiers across the LOC, so we could hardly have been blamed for going across ourselves; any number of reasons existed – from cutting off supply lines of the infiltrators, to avoiding the horrific casualties among our own troops entailed in frontal uphill assaults to re-capture the heights; to a straightforward stance that we had had enough of Pakistani attempts to force the Kashmir issue by military means and were settling things once and for all. But then again, as usual, we were not prepared militarily and also lacked the political imagination and courage. Then again No ember 2008 saw the outrage in Mumbai, with no response whatsoever from India.
Little wonder that everyone takes India for granted when it comes to Kashmir – China’s CPEC being a case in point.
Much as one respects Gen Panag’s view that 2001 was the “last opportunity,” I’m afraid he need to be ready for the next crisis / opportunity was never greater than today. Even today, we have neither doctrine nor force structures for such scenarios where opportunity arises to retake PoK.
India is a tale of missed opportunities beginning with 1947. It had to be with scoundrels like Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar and others at the helm who preferred to pluck low hanging fruit rather than create a powerful India. .
“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!'” ( John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) “Maud Muller)
What would a “ decisive conventional war “ against Pakistan have achieved ? And if India came close to “ winning “ it, however victory is defined, who would guarantee that it would remain conventional ? Although the standoff itself ended peacefully, we lost several soldiers, partly due to defective mines.
I wonder why the army doesn’t always train and keep prepared for war. Are they simply eating and sleeping in peacetime? Ridiculous excuses. Poor quality of army.
1971 example is a poor excuse and won’t work on the chinese border and not on the western border with pakistan.
Manekshaw himself said the pak army fought gallantly but the 1000 miles between east and west pak made losing inevitable for pak.
So 1971 is a very poor example, and it is already 50 years since 1971.
You cannot doubt that pak army will put up a strong fight and a poorly prepared indian army cannot cut it.
We have a first class Army and other armed forces. In terms of courage, fighting spirit and quality of junior (frontline) leadership our forces are second to none. The problem – to which Gen Panag alludes in his article – is the lack of a clear political objective, from which military goals for war can be set and thereafter appropriate equipment, training and plans can be developed to cater for different scenarios which may come to pass. This is a process where the political leadership is lacking as is the senior leadership of the armed forces. Another issue is that the top brass of the armed forces themselves – notably the Army and Air Force – are at loggerheads for petty reasons and are unable to put in place a unified structure whereby scare financial resources can be better used to equip efficiently on the basis of a joint doctrine. To cap it all, the only thing the bureaucracy of the MoD is good at is interminably delaying procurement. The political leadership has shown itself too weak and uninterested to cut through all this mess….. a surgical strike here or there for propaganda reasons seems to be good enough for them.
The last time India had a cohesive approach based on a clear political goal and well-set, well-coordinated military plans was in 1971. I do not say this as a BJP-Congress comparison by any means, but Indira Gandhi did an admirable job of melding together all strands of the nation’s power – diplomacy, intelligence work, the military and so on. The military leadership under General Maneckshaw and his counterparts in the IAF and the IN did a superb job together. The result was there for all to see.
Indeed, we lost an opportunity…. but not for the first or last time. Kargil in 1999 offered an even better opportunity to take back Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The world could see that it was Pakistan that had started the war by infiltrating soldiers across the LOC, so we could hardly have been blamed for going across ourselves; any number of reasons existed – from cutting off supply lines of the infiltrators, to avoiding the horrific casualties among our own troops entailed in frontal uphill assaults to re-capture the heights; to a straightforward stance that we had had enough of Pakistani attempts to force the Kashmir issue by military means and were settling things once and for all. But then again, as usual, we were not prepared militarily and also lacked the political imagination and courage. Then again No ember 2008 saw the outrage in Mumbai, with no response whatsoever from India.
Little wonder that everyone takes India for granted when it comes to Kashmir – China’s CPEC being a case in point.
Much as one respects Gen Panag’s view that 2001 was the “last opportunity,” I’m afraid he need to be ready for the next crisis / opportunity was never greater than today. Even today, we have neither doctrine nor force structures for such scenarios where opportunity arises to retake PoK.