Strategic Innocence

Alexander the Great invaded India in 326 BC, after having defeated the Persians and dismantled the Persian Empire. Crossing the Jhelum with the assistance of Ambi, the ruler of Taxila (Takshashila), he defeated Porus (Puru), who ruled the region between the Jhelum and the Chenab. Porus’s elephants were no match for Alexander’s generalship. According to legend, the defeated Porus’s spirited reply is supposed to have impressed Alexander enough to cause him to restore his kingdom (as a vassal of course). Soon afterwards, Alexander’s soldiers, exhausted after continuous campaigning since 336 BC, mutinied, and forced him to return. Alexander never reached home, dying in Babylon near present day Baghdad in 323 BC. What is significant in this story is that we owe our knowledge of Porus’s reply entirely to Greek historians and to English history books some two thousand years later. Thank you, Macaulay.

Alexander’s invasion of India was restricted to the far North West of India. For the next two thousand years, invaders invariably entered India through the Khyber and Bolan passes, defeated the Indian armies of the day and set up new dynasties, which in their turn succumbed to new invaders. We apparently learnt nothing in all those years. The Indian term for foreigners then and afterwards was Yavana, loosely, Greek. After the advent of Alexander and his decisive defeat of Porus, our general knowledge of foreigners was restricted to the Greeks. However, Greek chronicles of the period, including Xenophon’s classic ‘The Anabasis’ or ‘The March of the Ten Thousand’, speak of Indian mercenaries, who it seems had a high reputation for valour and loyalty, fighting in Central Asia and beyond. So it is apparent that even in those days, some Indians at least knew what lay beyond India’s borders. However, intelligence and preparation for war seem to have been ignored. The Arab and Afghan invasions of the eighth and later centuries gave rise to a new term for foreigner — ‘firanghi’, which is still current today. We apparently never could distinguish between foreigners. So much for our knowledge of geography.

The study of history does not seem to have had any place in ancient and medieval India. Thus lessons that should have been learnt were ignored. Indian armies continued to use elephants in battle for at least two thousand years after Alexander demonstrated their ineffectiveness against disciplined and well-led troops in battle. Babur’s defeat of Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat in 1526 owed much to his skilful use of artillery and ground. However, at the battle of Kanwa in 1527, the Rajputs under Rana Sangram Singh of Mewar resorted to massed cavalry charges against Babur’s artillery. They were slaughtered. Valour is no protection against cannonballs. Surprisingly, British military histories record that even as late as 1830, Indian cannons and swords were of higher quality and the average Indian soldier more skilful than the British soldier. However despite this, the British had already completed the subjugation of India by 1819, thanks to poor Indian leadership and the lack of a unified strategic vision. Apart from Tipu Sultan and a few others, most of the Indian rajas submitted meekly and accepted British pensions.

In stark contrast, the Chinese have always emphasized the importance of a sound military education. Sun Tzu’s classic, ‘The Art of War’, is mandatory reading in military academies the world over and is still relevant today after two thousand five hundred years. Ancient Chinese students of war were educated in the ‘Nine Military Classics’, a series of books on strategy and the conduct of war, which included Sun Tzu and commentaries on his work. According to Sun Tzu, the acme of generalship is to defeat the enemy without fighting. Further, he states that the essence of leadership is to lead in such a manner that those led do not even know that they are being led. When the goal is reached, they believe that they have accomplished the task themselves. Here the leader is more interested in the achievement of the goal rather than getting the credit.

The Chinese have always paid great attention to history. Unlike India, China’s history has been well documented by its own historians. Chinese history is an unbroken chain. Throughout its history, there has always been an emphasis on a strong centre. As a result, China has always had a strong consciousness of its political unity. Once a part of China, always a part of China, it seems. Hence its insistence today on Taiwan being an integral part of China. This is non-negotiable. In contrast, India readily accepted China’s claim to Tibet after the Chinese annexed it in 1951. On closer examination, the Chinese claim to Tibet does not really stand up. Tibet has always had an independent existence. Indeed, on occasion the Tibetans even extracted tribute from China. Unfortunately our foreign policy in the fifties was dictated not by realism, but by Nehruvian fantasy involving an India-China axis taking on the two superpower blocs. Though we continue to give shelter to the Dalai Lama after he fled Tibet in 1959, this is on the strict condition that he not indulge in political activity that might upset China. Far from reciprocating India’s accommodating attitude, China however chooses to contest Kashmir’s accession to India and has laid claim to Arunachal Pradesh as a part of Tibet. Meanwhile, China has created a chain of dependencies and bases around India’s land borders and its sea routes. It has pre-empted the US by claiming Kazakh gas reserves for itself and has obtained access for its goods and Middle Eastern gas and oil through the Pakistani port of Gwadar, which it developed. As I mentioned in a previous piece, China has plans to construct a series of dams in Tibet on the upper reaches of Asia’s major rivers, the Mekong, Brahmaputra, Irrawady, which all originate there. We have yet to determine our response to these developments. India has always been reactive.

The reason — our lack of strategic thinking. When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1951, India should have adopted a wait and watch approach. By readily accepting Tibet as a part of China, we gave up a vital bargaining chip. In international affairs, this is just not done. We thus lost potential leverage vis a vis China, for which we are now paying. We repeated the mistake later, when after China exploded its first nuclear bomb at Lop Nor in 1964, the worried Americans asked India to go nuclear. We refused. The nuclear club was frozen in 1971 with the NPT and we were frozen out. Many years later, we are now trying to get our foot in the door, but are being asked to pay an American price. A similar situation applied when in 1971, Taiwan’s permanent seat in the UN Security Council was up for grabs. India insisted that it go to China, when a little adroit manoeuvring would probably have ensured that we got it. We are now lobbying for support for a permanent seat, with China alternately blowing hot and cold.

I have been witness to our lack of strategic thinking in Air HQ during negotiations with foreign vendors for military equipment. I noticed that these delegations, sometimes as large as fifty, always had a definite plan, right from the seating to the negotiations. They were always seated where the leader could control the exchange. No one spoke out of turn. Domain experts were always allowed to have their say and generally had the final word. No one interrupted another, except if someone seemed to be giving the game away. In contrast the Indian team met for the first time just outside the hall; the leaders had not read the briefs; no one knew how to start the negotiations and there was no clear plan. A frequent excuse for ignorance was — “This is not my file. The concerned officer is on leave. I do not know anything”. Further, in keeping with Indian tradition, the senior-most leader hogged the conversation irrespective of how little he knew, because to admit ignorance is a sign of weakness. No wonder the ‘firanghis’ run rings around us.

We have an example of this after 26/11. From a position of weakness after being pinpointed as the source of the terror, Pakistan has adroitly turned the tables on us and to date has refused to accept any of our demands. We need to develop a strategic sense and soon.