Restructuring the answer to all problems

 

As, in the decade before the 1962 fiasco, India was spending just a little over one per cent of its GDP on defence because of the deeply entrenched mind set of our political leadership that there was simply no possibility of a major military conflict. As a result 1962 was a highly traumatic and chastising experience that served as a reality check for Indian policy makers. As a consequence post 1962 the army was rapidly expanded from 10 to 25 divisions. Eight mountain divisions were added for the China front. The Eastern Command was shifted from Lucknow to Kolkata. A 64 squadron air force and a 54 capital ship navy were also proposed which got stuck due the 1965 war and the subsequent downturn in the Indian economy. What is worth notice is that the Indian armed forces never fully actualised their post 1962 force expansion programmes that were designed to deal with a two-front war threat. Later, it was with the former Soviet Union’s assistance which heavily subsidised this build up of hard power in India that it became the pre-eminent power in South Asia through the decade of the 1970s. 

 

It was during the 80s, under the leadership of Gen Sundarji, the Indian army got mechanized by increasing the number of armoured divisions to three and added the RAPID divisions to ensure credible force against Pakistan. The air force diversified its inventory and the navy bought the aircraft carrier Virat and added Russian submarines and destroyers. India’s defence spending shot up to a peak level of some five per cent of the GDP. 1989 came as a major shift as cold war, post Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, ended and Pakistan was able to recommit its 11 and 12 corps against India. Pakistan had achieved virtual military parity with India in terms of deployable force levels. India’s declining defence capability in the nineties, was undoubtedly one of the factors that prompted Pakistan’s intrusion in Kargil which was handled competently. 

 

“Operation Parakram” followed in 2001 saw the mobilisation of the entire Indian armed forces for a massive coercive exercise with rather mixed results. The entire Soviet era capital military stock of the Indian armed forces now needed replacement and this led to the introduction of T-90 tanks, MiG-29 and U-30 jet fighters. 

 

The Kargil review committee and the group of ministers (GoM) saw a major military intellectual ferment in India. This led to structural changes like Integrated Defence Staff: was set up, Enhanced Involvement of Military Leadership in Planning Process. Also, Creation of the South-Western Command, 16 corps was bifurcated; the holding corps was re-designated as Pivot Corps (without any additional allocation of resources). The shift, therefore, was only notional as there was no restructuring the Strike Corps and no shifting forward of the cantonments of the armoured formations. This had more than its share of constraints that needed to be thought through. 

 

Although General J.J.Singh tried to restructure keeping China threat in mind. In the years ahead India will be called upon to respond to ever greater challenges from within its geo- political environment.