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The intervention in Sri Lanka in the form of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), to disarm militant groups and end civil war, remains a bitter chapter in Indian military history. It revealed several shortcomings at almost all hierarchical levels from the tactical battle zone up through the chain of command to the service headquarters and decision-making at the political level. While much has been written on Operation Pawan, as the Sri Lankan campaign is codenamed, at the strategic level, the circumstances and constraints under which the IPKF functioned, the failures and the lessons learnt and still to be learnt, here is a book which takes the reader right into the battle zone. It gives out a field commander's perspective on what it was like to fight in an alien environment and in difficult operational and administrative conditions. The book is about the role and experience of officers and men of the Indian Army's 7 Infantry Brigade deployed, as part of 36 Infantry Division, in Mallaittivu district of northern Sri Lanka, where it was tasked to keep the main arterial road to Jaffna peninsula from the hinterland open and dominate its area of responsibility that happened to be the LTTE citadel and also the same area where the ruthless LTTE supremo Vellupillai Prabhakaran met his bloody end two decades later.
The author talks about the varied problems the troops faced on induction. These range from poor battle indoctrination and inadequate training to establishing cordial relations with locals, getting food supplies and dealing with the ruthlessness and alacrity of the LTTE. Shortcomings in fieldcraft, battle drills and shooting, the basic of infantry soldiering, were cruelly exposed. Soldiers paid with their lives for their amateurishness and institutional weaknesses. Contact with the LTTE and combat as well as evolving procedures and changing tactics to adapt to the peculiar nature of operations is vividly described along with a mention of the role of other arms and services, including the special forces. There were a number of occasions where officers and men showed courage and presence of mind under fire. The book also contains some nitty-gritty travails of infantry soldering and interesting anecdotes about day-to-day life in a military camp away from the heat of the battle. We read of cows intoxicated on fermented fruit lurching around the camp annoying religious- minded officer, Jats learning to scale tall coconut trees to pick fruit, dealing with a high-headed priest over the high pitch of his temple loudspeaker and so on. While touching upon the background to the Tamil-Sinhala conflict and the political developments taking place at that time in Sri Lanka, the author also gives out the overall state of the command and control of the IPKF and the higher defence management, which often put field commanders in a dilemma and awkward situations. This is brought out in the author's reference in his book to an article written by Lt Gen SC Sardeshpande, who had commanded 54 Infantry Division in Jaffna and subsequently was Chief of Staff, IPKF, which states, "Operation Pawan was a clear instance of uninspiring senior leadership, which the nation and its military can ill afford in an interventionist venture, though the IPKF just about got away with it. It was a big downslide from the days of Bangladesh War of 1971." Highly critical of the Army's then top commanders, including a Chief of Army Staff who was neither dynamic nor forceful, nor a firm realist and exerted little influence on shaping response and politico-strategic employment of the IPKF, Sardeshpande states that a southern Army Commander lost the confidence of the field commanders over his prejudices and negative interest and could not raise the level of operations beyond unit tactics, leave aside evolving and executing matching strategy. In the author’s own words, had there been proper briefings, circulation of aims and objectives, progress of operations, current and future likely scenarios, it would have helped commanders in the field. Strategy is driven by political aims, which was lacking in Sri Lanka He writes about Gen K. Sundarji, who was the Army chief when Operation Pawan was launched himself stating during a lecture in 1991 that India's intervention into Sri Lanka had no national strategy, which placed commanders and troops in an unacceptable and impossible position. When the government in power took a decision to adopt the hard option against the LTTE, it turned out to be a hasty move.
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The author, a
second-generation Guards officer and alumni of the British Army's
Staff College, Camberly and the US Army's Command and General Staff
College, Kansas, commanded 7 Brigade for two years during its
deployment in strife-torn areas of northern Sri Lanka. He restricts
his narrative to the operations of his about 3,000-strong brigade that
formed part of the IPKF, the strength of which peaked at 90,000.