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Siachen demilitarisation
A low-risk option to test Pak army’s sincerity
by Gurmeet Kanwal
Ever since General Kayani, the Pakistan Army Chief, made a statement seeking peaceful co-existence with India and pushed for the demilitarisation of the Siachen conflict zone, the commentary that has been published on the subject in India has been mostly negative. Some of the views are ultra-jingoistic and deserve to be discarded as there is no scope for jingoism in international negotiations. Other opposition to demilitarisation is primarily on two major issues: firstly, that the Pakistan Army cannot be trusted to honour the demilitarisation agreement; and, secondly, that China and Pakistan will gang up and join hands at Siachen and threaten Ladakh from the north.Apparently, the finer nuances of the demilitarisation process have not been clearly understood. The demilitarisation agreement between India and Pakistan will be a legally binding international agreement. It will lay down a step-by-step process to turn the Siachen conflict zone into a demilitarised zone (DMZ). The first step will be authentication of the present deployment positions. This will be followed by disengagement from the AGPL and, finally, the movement of troops, guns and war-like stores to previously agreed positions. The step-by-step demilitarisation process will be mutually agreed by the two DGMOs and approved by the political authorities. The demilitarisation agreement will be without prejudice to either country’s stated position on the extension of the Line of Control (LoC) beyond NJ9842. This reference on military maps is the point up to which the Cease-Fire Line was jointly demarcated under the Karachi Agreement of 1949 and the Shimla Agreement of 1972. In fact, a Joint Commission will be appointed to negotiate the extension of the LoC beyond NJ9842. This commission will begin its work simultaneously with the commencement of the process of demilitarisation. However, an agreement on the extension of the LoC beyond NJ9842 cannot be a prelude to the commencement of demilitarisation, as some analysts are suggesting. Such a condition, if imposed by India, will make demilitarisation of the Siachen conflict zone a non-starter and both sides will be forced to continue to maintain their present deployments with all the attendant costs. As part of demilitarisation, the disengagement and redeployment of all military forces to agreed positions will be verified independently by national technical means (satellites, air photos and electronic surveillance) as well as physically through joint helicopter sorties. Subsequent monitoring of the DMZ will also be similarly undertaken. No military activity will be permitted in the DMZ. In addition to mutually agreed physical monitoring being conducted jointly with laid-down periodicity, both sides will have the right to conduct surprise inspections of suspected military movements. A joint monitoring centre (JMC) will be established. This could be set up near Chalunka, where the LoC passes over the Shyok river and road access is easily available. The JMC will be jointly manned by Indian and Pakistani personnel and will have communications with the controlling HQ on both sides. Updated satellite photos and streaming videos from helicopter and UAV sorties will also be regularly available. All joint verification and monitoring activities will be controlled from here. As both verification and monitoring will be transparent joint activities, it will be ensured that the process of demilitarisation is completed to the mutual satisfaction of both India and Pakistan. Alleged violations of the demilitarisation agreement will be jointly verified. The demilitarisation agreement will contain a clause permitting both sides to take any action that is deemed appropriate, including the use of military means, in case the agreement is violated by the other side. Unauthorised military movement will not go unchallenged. The intruding personnel will be targeted by helicopter gunships and the fighter-ground attack aircraft of the Indian Air Force, as also by armed drones. In case any bunker that is vacated by Indian troops is occupied by the Pakistanis, it will be destroyed by using precision strike munitions. Under these circumstances, even if the Pakistan Army has intentions of attempting to occupy vacated Indian bunkers, it will not succeed in doing so. Small enemy patrols intruding surreptitiously into the DMZ will not be able to survive beyond a few days in the high altitude wilderness. They will need sustained helicopter support for ammunition, rations and fuel for warming. Supply helicopters will be easily detected and shot down. Large-scale intrusions of platoon to company size will be neutralised by air-to-ground strikes by the IAF with quick reaction reserves - that will be maintained in a high state of operational readiness in Ladakh - being employed for ‘mopping up’ operations. Hence, it will be militarily impossible for Pakistan to ‘hand over’ portions of the DMZ to China or to gang up with that country to jointly threaten Ladakh. Those who are imagining such linkages are seeing phantoms and vastly overstating the threat. The joint working group constituted to draw up a demilitarisation agreement should be headed jointly by the two DGMOs and their staff assisted by MoD officials and diplomats. They should meet at the Attari-Wagah border and prepare a draft demilitarisation agreement that addresses the apprehensions and concerns of both sides. The draft agreement should be thoroughly debated in both Parliaments and among civil society luminaries, including military veterans. Of course, it has to be remembered that it will be impossible to reach an agreement if all possible objections were to be removed first. The demilitarisation of the Siachen conflict zone will not only act as a huge military-to-military confidence-building measure, but will also test the Pakistan Army’s sincerity and will be an opportunity for that army to prove that it has actually had a change of heart at the strategic level in wanting peace with India. It is a low-risk option to test whether the Pakistan Army can be trusted, and India must not lose the opportunity to do so. However, India must draw up a demilitarisation agreement that takes care of all political and military apprehensions and make it clear to the Pakistan leadership that no military violation will be tolerated.n The writer is a Delhi-based defence
analyst.
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A zero to hero
by Sankar Sen
Sometimes the best as well as the worst traits of a man’s personality are revealed in difficult and challenging situations. A man deemed unworthy and incompetent can display extraordinary courage and presence of mind unexpected of him, and similarly one considered strong and lion-hearted becomes craven in a crisis. I recall a revealing incident when an officer considered inept showed his true métier in a life-and-death situation. Details of the incident were recounted to me by a close friend and colleague.My friend Kalyan Mitra was posted as the Superintendent of Police in Bolangir district of Orissa. It was his first posting in a district. As new SP, he was straining hard to get to grips with the problems of effectively policing a district and earn his spurs. One of the foremost challenges of a district police chief is to size up his subordinates, assess their strong and weak points and then make suitable job allocations. His success as the police chief of the district depends much on the choice of his team and the way in which he leads it. In a district police organisation, the reserve office is the key-stone of the arch. It is the nerve centre for the deployment of police personnel for various duties all over the district. For quick response to emergencies the district armed police reserve is stationed in the reserve office. The Reserve Inspector is an important functionary, whose job is to ensure efficient running of the reserve office and also to organise sports, drills and games in the reserve ground. He has a pivotal role to play in smooth deployment and maintenance of discipline in the force. Mitra’s Reserve Inspector at that time was a person called Binod Mohanty. He was smart and muscular with an athletic bearing. But performance of duties belied his smart appearance. He was casual with a laidback style and somewhat mercurial temperament. Duties assigned to him were perfunctorily performed and he had to be pulled up on countless occasions for various omissions and commissions. But censures and remonstrances did not have any visible impact on him. Mohanty remained unredeemed. However, in an extraordinary situation, the same Mohanty who was often the butt of Mitra’s invectives displayed exemplary courage and presence of the mind of a high order never expected of him. Lousinga police station of Bolangir district at that time was terrorised by a leopard wreaking havoc. The grisly animal had become a byword for fear. Many panic-stricken villagers had left their homes and sought the help of the district authorities to protect them from the leopard menace. Responding to the call of duty, the young Superintendent of Police went to the village, accompanied by a constable, who was an ace shooter and the Reserve Inspector Mohanty. Mitra felt that as a young SP he must lead from the front. On reaching the village, he came to know that the leopard, after being shot and wounded by a local shikari, had retreated into a nearby forest. In his fervid enthusiasm, he committed an error of judgement by deciding to enter the forest in search of the leopard accompanied by Reserve Inspector Mohanty and the constable, an ace rifle shooter of the district. Mohanty was carrying a 410 musket and Mitra and the constable carried 303 rifles each. Soon after entering the forest, the party heard a deafening growl and saw the animal glaring at them at a distance of about 25 feet. Before Mitra could press the trigger, the animal rushed towards him in a lightning burst of speed and pounced on him. The rifle flew away from his hands and he fell on the ground with his face turning upwards. The constable, thinking that discretion was the better part of valour, took to his heels, hid himself under a tree and watched the proceedings from a distance. But Mohanty held his nerve and came to Mitra’s rescue. He repeatedly tried to hit the animal with the barrel of the gun and went on shouting to distract its attention. The angry leopard, which was trying to claw prostrate Mitra by one hand and snarl at Mohanty with the other suddenly gave up the prey and moved to a near-by bush. Mohanty lifted the SP, who had suffered injuries in several parts of the body and was profusely bleeding. Providentially, he was safe and alive. Later, Mohanty was awarded the “Prime Minister’s medal for life
saving”.
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Inefficiency and corruption in government-run agencies and strong lobbying by foreign vendors have shackled the defence industry. Clear policy directions with embedded accountability, swift action against the corrupt and encouragement to the industry is required
Revitalising the repressed defence industry
Maj Gen J.S. Kataria (Retd)
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T-72 tanks on parade during Army Day. Indian defence preparedness embattles low levels of indigenisation and growing obsolescence
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A
confidential letter written by Chief of the Army Staff Gen VK Singh on March 12 to the Prime Minister, highlighting the glaring weaknesses in India's defence preparedness on account of obsolescence of 97 per cent of air defence equipment and a void in critical tank ammunition, came into the public domain, sixteen days later. The very next day the General clarified that the Indian Army was ready to take on any contingency, since the defence preparedness is a large field that comprises of training and morale besides the equipment and allied resources. Is that enough?The 1962 Indo-China war was fought by our troops with .303 bolt action rifles, the 1965 Indo-Pak war was fought with weapon systems of the Second World War vintage. The situation was only a shade better during the 1971 Indo-Pak War and even during the 1999 Kargil confict. Today, the Indian Armed Forces are rated amongst the best in the world, making us to believe that "its the man behind the machine that matters". True, but it would be naive to believe that troops armed with high morale would continue to deliver with obsolete or inferior weapons when pitched against superior technology. This is so, when India became the largest defence importer during 2007-2011, overtaking China, as affirmed in a report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2011. The Indian defence outlay in 2011 was 46.8 billion dollars - 30 per cent of China's outlay of 143 billion dollars. The defence minister told Parliament on May 8, 2012 that India spent 2.35 per cent of the GDP on defence in 2011, lower than the world average of 2.6 per cent. Clearly, India is lagging in indigenisation. The malaise impeding indigenisation of weapon systems is deeper than that meets the eye. At Independence, there were 16 ordnance factories, largely meant for repair and overhaul. Till the DRDO came up in 1958, defence remained a forgotten subject. The policy makers failed to realise that defence is a highly specialised sector, requiring long gestation periods and high levels of commitment. It was after the 1962 debacle that India created the Department of Defence Production and Supplies (DDPS) and started building up the DRDO, ordnance factories and defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs). But, even thereafter, the nation's weapon systems largely came from the erstwhile USSR. India felt the urgency of indigenisation after the disintegration of the USSR in 1989. Today, there is DRDO with 50 laboratories, 39 ordnance factories and 8 DPSUs. The tight bureaucratic control, lack of any accountability in perspective planning, absence of time schedule for development/ production, poor transparency in financial dealings, labour unions, red tapism and blame game amongst the multiple agencies have kept these organisations at the lowest ebb of their performance. Except for the development of Agni, Prithvi and a couple of other systems, most of the projects like MBT Arjun, INSAS family of weapons, tactical missiles and many more are a testimony to time slippages and second grade quality. The life cycle of a weapon system, generally deemed as 30 years, makes it imperative that the replacement system is put into trials when the equipment has reached half of its life i.e. 15 years. By the time it reaches obsolescence, the new equipment should start reaching the user units. We cannot wait for the Chief's letter to come into the public domain to realise that we are burdened with equipment that is reaching obsolescence, if not already obsolete, or wait for the war drums to roll and run into procurement frenzy as was the case during the Kargil conflict. Acquisition of Bofors artillery guns has been an important landmark in the history of Indian defence acquisitions. A gun that was best in the world got embroiled in irregularities and kickbacks. It is after 25 years that the nation is getting ready to exorcise the ghost of Bofors by signing a government-to-government deal to procure 145 M-777 ultra light howitzers from the US. Even in the aftermath of the Kargil conflict, there were echoes of graft in acquisitions to support the war. Now we have the TATRA truck's bribe case doing the rounds. It is emerging that Bharat Earth Movers Limited, a defence PSU, overcharged the Army not for trucks alone but also for the WZT-3 Armoured Recovery Vehicle and its spares procured from Poland. It is a case of the guardian becoming the swindler! There could be many more skeletons in the cupboard. Cases of bribery and lack of transparency have had a direct impact on the nation’s defence preparedness and security. There is a crying need to book the corrupt expeditiously. A holistic review of the situation indicates that apparently the PSUs and ordnance factories have become corruption centers through which the middle men operate. They are known to hire senior retired officers as consultants to keep some of the projects alive or push second grade systems into service. The episode involving the purported bribe to the Army Chief involving a retired lieutenant general seems to have generated the proposal to debar service officers from taking assignments for five years after retirement. It should be applicable to all government officials across the board and not to defence officers alone. There cannot be double standards! In 2001, Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) allowed participation of the private sector in defence production. Since then, 155 letters of intent have been issued but only a few companies have entered the fray. The new DPP of 2011 permits 100 per cent investment by Indian private sector and 26 per cent through foreign direct investment, subject to licensing permission. The latest provision of 30 per cent offset is designed to improve employment and upgrade technology in the country. Whether these initiatives pave the way for indigenisation, reduce the import bill and improve our economy, only time will tell. Besides, India is expected to spend approximately 125-150 billion dollars on defence procurement in the coming decade. The strong lobby of foreign vendors sees this as an opportunity and would endeavour to slow down indigenisation by keeping the PSUs and ordnance factories in the acquisition mode under the garb of "Buy and Make Policy". Can India break their shackles and become self reliant in defence? We have the scientific base and the will that we have displayed when denied the cryogenic technology. Given the governmental support, resources, clear policy directions with embedded accountability to DPSUs and ordnance factories, swift action against the corrupt and encouragement to the industry; yes we can! The author has served with the Special Forces and commanded a division in a strike corps
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