Most of us who serve the nation’s flag for three or four decades are witness to or even participate in events that make history. But not many have the vision or perspicacity to place them correctly in the kaleidoscope of a nation’s historical narrative. Even fewer are blessed with the erudition and inclination to record or analyse what they witness.
Arjun Subramaniam, the author of India’s Wars: A Military History, 1947-71 is one such exception. A serving Air vice-marshal of the Indian Air Force, he follows the worthy tradition of Thucydides, the 5th century BC Athenian general, who wrote a first-hand account while participating in the Peloponnesian Wars. However, Subramaniam faced a hazard that Thucydides did not have to: Running the gauntlet of military conservatism. Aspiring authors are required to have their manuscripts vetted by military intelligence staff, who see their role as bowdlerisation and censorship. Subramaniam is lucky that his creative endeavour has seen the light of day while still in uniform. One hopes that these signs of “glasnost” in South Block will inspire others of his ilk to put pen to paper.
Given his stated interest in military history and the extensive reading he seems to have done, this book has obviously been in the author’s head for many years. His reflections, during a career combining military-aviation with academic pursuits, have led him to agonise over many issues: the baffling neglect of military history by Indian academia as well as intelligentsia, the excessive national emphasis on “pacifism” and its impact on contemporary strategic culture and our Kafkaesque bureaucracy, which has prevented the de-classification of national security documents.
All this, the author points out, has denied India’s armed forces the credit they deserve for safeguarding our democracy, kept the public ignorant of the military’s battlefield exploits and deterred the cream of our youth from taking up a soldiering career. Above all, he fears, ignorance of military history has prevented Indians from learning from their own past and contributed to inept national strategies as well as military blunders. These are amongst the factors that have inspired this airman to compile this vivid portrayal of India’s wars in its early years.
Subramaniam’s narrative is divided into five thematic parts, which take the reader through its contents in logical progression. It starts with the historical provenance of each of India’s three armed forces, including their gallant conduct in overseas theatres of the two World Wars and the significant contribution of Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA to India’s freedom struggle. He rightly laments the sad indifference shown by Independent India’s political leadership in not according due recognition to the courage and sacrifices made by our warriors in both instances.
The narrative then goes on to provide accounts of the conflicts in which our armed forces participated during the quarter-century, post-Independence. The first segment relates to early military actions — essentially within our borders — encompassing the Kashmir War of 1947-48, integration of Hyderabad and Junagadh and Liberation of Goa in 1961. The author’s painstaking research is manifest in descriptions of major battles and vignettes that come to life; of free-India’s first military legends like Major Somnath Sharma, Air Commodore “Baba” Mehar Singh and Brigadier Mohammad Usman. One wonders how many young officers — leave alone civilian youth — have heard these names
Moving on to trans-border conflicts, the segments that follow describe India’s full-blown military actions against hostile neighbours: China and Pakistan. The tragic debacle of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the drawn 1965 Indo-Pak War and the triumph of the 1971 War of Bangladesh Liberation have all been depicted by Subramaniam in depth and detail. In each case, he undertakes a historical probe into the background and casus belli for the conflict and provides a summary of the major actions fought on land, sea and in the air.
As an airman, Subramaniam is, understandably, at pains to highlight the contribution of air-power, whether in combat roles or in logistic-support tasks and never fails to express angst at “lost opportunities” (in 1947, 1962 and 1965) where he feels an imaginative leadership (political as well as IAF), could have swung the balance by a bolder approach to deployment of air power. He also grasps every opportunity to underscore the — regrettably infrequent — instances of “jointness” where one or more of the services demonstrated synergy in planning and/or operations.
Apart from its historical worth, this narrative serves to expose India’s weak strategic culture, manifest in three egregious grand-strategic blunders by its leadership within the first 24 years: (a) India’s referral of the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council at a critical juncture of the 1947-48 war; (b) the mindless “Forward Policy” which pitted an ill-prepared Indian Army against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 1962; and (c) Indira Gandhi’s political capitulation to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1972 Simla Conference, following India’s historic military victory in Bangladesh.
The roots of our strategic debility can be traced to a toxic Nehruera legacy: Misplaced faith in non-violence, coupled with paranoid suspicion of the armed forces. We have learnt nothing from history.
Arjun Subramaniam deserves praise for diligence and resolve in delivering his maiden opus in the midst of a busy military career. This panoramic presentation, provides not only a multi-track account of India’s early wars but also offers valuable insights into how a reluctant Indian state used force in national interest in its formative years. I would recommend India’s Wars as a book worth reading to scholars, analysts and soldiers as well as to lay persons with an interest in history or the military.
Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) is a former Chief of Naval Staff
