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New
Delhi, 21 October 2006
The need for
India to appoint a
CDS, which we had been advocating since Kargil, was once again
brought to the fore by the unnecessary washing of dirty linen in
public by one of our former Chiefs of Staff, in this case former Air
Chief, Air Chief Marshal A Y Tipnis. No doubt the motivation was to
gain publicity for his recently published book of memoirs. Perhaps
it was in retaliation for what the former Army Chief Gen. Ved Malik
had written in his book. We have often wondered why it is necessary
for people in power, who are now retired, to write books to justify
their actions when they were in office –– maybe because their
actions were questionable in the first place and now need to be
justified for posterity. Recent cases in point are Vishnu Bhagwat,
Jaswant Singh, Ved Malik, A Y Tipnis and Pervez Musharraf. Hopefully
we will soon get the low down from Natwar Singh and George Fernandes
too!
Tipnis was known to be an upright officer. He was the Chief
of Air Staff in early May 1999 when the Kargil intrusions
by the Pakistan
Army took place . Gen Pervez Musharraf was the architect of that
secretly planned controversial foray to snatch the commanding
strategic heights along the LOC from under the Indian army’s nose,
and cut
India’s road link to and from Ladakh. His book In the Line of
Fire, is doing the rounds and has been widely reviewed in India
and Musharraf claims Pakistan nearly succeeded in winning the war.
Interestingly, in a nine page article in the October issue of
FORCE magazine, brought out on the eve of the Platinum Jubilee of
the Indian Air Force on 8th October, Tipnis went public
on the reasons for delay in actions taken to meet the Kargil
intrusion with air support. He bared names and conversations
peppered with details of all the secret parleys that took place
between the Chiefs and Vice Chiefs of the Armed Forces for many days
and with others including their interaction with the NSA Brajesh
Misra and the former EAM Jaswant Singh till 24th May.
The matter appears to have finally been discussed with PM
Vajpayee for the first time in a CCS meeting that was held only on
25th May, and he decisively gave his approval on that day
to employ air power along the Line of Control in Kashmir to remove
the Pakistani aggression in the words, “Theek hai, kal subah se
shuroo karo “ (All right, start tomorrow morning). Before that date
there were ad hoc meetings. The MOD seems to have been sidelined. In
India only
the PM who is the de facto Commander in Chief can give higher
military decisions under the powers vested in him under Article 52
of the Constitution. The President is a ceremonial Commander in
Chief, and the three Chiefs are equal and autonomous, which in the
past too had led to many anomalous situations in the wars that India
has fought. The Government is reluctant to release the official
papers of these wars so no lessons can be learnt.
The baring of hitherto secret machinations of the pre Kargil
war happenings made by one of the prime actors responsible for
India’s
security, the then Chief of Air Staff, needs heeding. Tipnis’s
outburst as it appears in print, reveals the inherent weaknesses in
the current decision making process in India’s higher military
command. It also brings to sharp focus the diffused way in which the
nation’s security responsibilities are divided between the three
Chiefs with no single head to coalesce the collective Services
viewpoint, and project it to the Government. There are 19 separately
situated commands so no theatre command responsibility exists,
except perhaps in the Andaman and Nicobar Command. Gen SF Manekshaw
realized these weaknesses when preparing for the 1971 war and he
assumed the mantle of a CDS as a one off case, as he had Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi’s tacit support. Today with coalition
Governments in place such a tactic may not work, and needs
institutionalization. Strangely, kept out of the decision-making
loop for days was the powerful Defence Secretary, as he was junior
to the Chiefs. The newly instituted National Security Adviser, whose
role has changed from merely being an adviser to that of a decision
maker at a level of the Defence Minister, comes out in the
revelations.
The start point of the action to unleash India’s aerial
might, according to Tipnis, actually began on 9th May
when his Vice Chief, Brar came to his office for a cup of coffee and
informed him that the
ACAS (Intelligence)
had inputs that the Army was in some sort of difficulty in the
Kargil area, but the Northern Army Commander, Lt Gen Pal, was away
on leave in Pune and the IAF’s AOC, J and K, in Srinagar had not
been informed of anything untoward or been approached for any help.
In New Delhi, the Army Chief, who also the Chairman Chiefs of Staff
Committee (COSC), Gen V P Malik was abroad and Lt Gen Chandrashekar
was officiating as the Army Chief and Admiral Sushil Kumar was
officiating as the COSC. The COSC is a post held in rotation by the
senior most Chief by appointment in office. It appears that only
telephonic talks took place between the Vice Chiefs. On 14th
May Chandrashekar met the Air Chief and told him the Army could
throw out the intruders if the Air Force provided Mi-17 attack
helicopters in support of the Army to hasten the matter.
The Air Chief was reluctant to accede to this request without
a Government approval as he wanted air power to bear and the CBM
(confidence building measures) agreement with
Pakistan did not
permit flying within 8km of the borders. In a COSC meeting on 16th
May, called at the behest of the Air Chief and which irritated the
Navy Chief, it was decided not to approach the Government but
maintain status quo. In another meeting with the Defence Minsiter
and NSA in the Army Ops room on 17 May, the NSA said
status quo to be maintained on the use of air power. In the CCS
meeting on 18 May , where it seems the PM was not in
attendance, the EAM Jaswant Singh suggested status quo be maintained
on the use of the Air Force as he was also to travel abroad, and
this would internationalize the issue. Finally, it was only on 25
May that the PM gave the okay to use air power, after a delay of
more than three weeks. The Army has always contended that had air
power been provided earlier there may have been less loss of lives
on our side and the whole skirmish could have been wrapped up
quickly.
The Government can now do two things: first it can rap the
knuckles of ACM Tipnis under the antiquated Official Secrets Act
1923 for divulging sensitive information to the media. The
Government is yet to amend the Act, which in its present form, has
become totally irrelevant in the face of the information revolution.
Hence, any action under the Act is highly unlikely, as by doing so
the damage already done may only be highlighted to the public. The
Hezbollah action against
Israel recently had
shown how the rocket and missile retaliation by Hezbollah was
instantaneous.
The other course of action by the Government is to seriously
study at the highest level the need to appoint a Chief of Defence
Staff as recommended by the Kargil Committee. It is clear that the
higher decision making process in the security setup of the armed
forces and indeed the country is inadequate. The Kargil Committee
set up to debrief the conflict had strongly recommended the creation
of a CDS to ensure jointness and coordination in the armed forces.
However, successive RMs had soft pedalled the issue. The present RM
has stated that the issue needs to be discussed by all the political
parties before taking a decision but so far as we know it has been
referred to no one. The three Chiefs themselves see the appointment
of a CDS as cutting into their own power and the bureaucrats are
happy with their policy of divide and rule to keep the upper hand
over the Chiefs! So all we have is a huge infrastructure created to
support a CDS but no CDS. (All indians, no Chief!)
The CDS like in 34 other countries which follow such a system
must have authority, responsibility and accountability for
India’s military
security. The Government has never released the official papers of
the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars or the Henderson Brooke’s report or the
details of the Sri Lanka Op Pawan. Hence no lessons ever get learnt.
The Government must act on Tipnis’ revelations.
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