Did General Naravane do the right thing?
Former Army Chief General MM Naravane wrote in his unpublished memoir that he was handed a "hot potato" by the NDA government during the confrontation with China along the LAC in August 2020. India's history of "hot potatoes" suggests a pattern. The political leadership gives nothing but broad brush outlines to military leaders, who then exercise their judgement.
Four days after a deadly terror attack by Pakistani terrorists on India's Parliament on December 11, 2001, India's political leadership launched Operation Parakram, the largest peacetime mobilisation of the Indian armed forces on the border with Pakistan. In one of the meetings during the deployment, Army chief General S Padmanabhan (now retired) asked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee what his orders were. "Aap chaliye, hum batayenge (go ahead, we will tell you what to do)," an officer privy to the conversation said.
The orders to punish Pakistan for supporting cross-border terrorism, however, never came. There were multiple reasons for this, including US pressure and fears of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, which led to the restraint. The Army was deployed along the border with Pakistan for nearly 10 months before the troops were called back to barracks.
Cut to Ladakh in 2020. Former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane (Retd) said in his unpublished memoir, Four Stars of Destiny, that he was handed a "hot potato" at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
The former Army Chief said he waited for orders during a hair-trigger situation when Chinese tanks were advancing towards Indian positions in August 2020. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh advised him — "Jo uchit samjho, woh karo - (exercise your judgement)." China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) was furious at being outsmarted by an Indian Army deployment which captured the Kailash Range, south of the Pangong Tso Lake. They moved tanks towards Indian positions.
It was a knife-edge moment because this was the only occasion during the standoff where the Indian Army contemplated using heavy artillery. A single salvo from a battery of six 155-mm Bofors guns can saturate an area the size of 10 football fields with a tonne of explosives, stopping tanks dead in their tracks.
The Opposition has accused the government of vacillating during the standoff. It's easy to see the Ladakh episode as a case of politicians shrugging away responsibility. But a closer look at military "hot potatoes" over the last 78 years suggests that India's political class only gives the broad outlines of military action and rarely interferes with the conduct of military operations.
HOW INDIA'S POLITICAL LEADERSHIP HAS GUIDED THE MILITARY SINCE 1947
On October 27, 1947, Prime Minster Jawaharlal Nehru sent in the Indian Army to evict Pakistani raiders in Jammu and Kashmir. On January 1, 1949, after 15 months of conflict, he accepted a call for a UN-mediated ceasefire. The ceasefire, however, left Pakistan in control of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).
In 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi instructed the Indian Armed Forces to liberate Bangladesh, but left the war fighting to her military. The military leadership correctly assessed that the capture of Dhaka would lead to the collapse of the Pakistani garrison.
In 1999, Prime Minister Vajpayee instructed the Army and Air Force to conduct operations to evict Pakistan Army intruders in Kargil, but without crossing the LoC. The Pakistan Army was evicted, but at a heavy cost, with 527 Indian soldiers being killed.
The rare occasion where the political class interfered with the conduct of military operations, was during the 1962 war with China, and India paid a heavy price.
Leaked drafts of the still-classified Henderson Brookes report point to numerous tactical mistakes driven by political pressure leading to a defeat in the 1962 war. Egregious mistakes included a public proclamation by Prime Minister Nehru that he had asked the Indian Army to throw out the intruding PLA. When the Chinese attacked on October 20, 1962, IAF fighter jets were not launched to strike at the PLA's logistical lines, a deeply divisive decision, even now.
In May 2020, India's political leadership ordered the largest military mobilisation in Ladakh since the 1962 war with China. Two army corps comprising over 50,000 soldiers backed by tanks and artillery were sent to the theatre. Most importantly, unlike in 1962, IAF fighter jets were readied for offensive air strikes against the PLA. While ordering these deployments, the political leadership implicitly trusted the military leadership on the ground and in command, to do the right thing.
"India's political leadership are not military strategists, they give you the broad contours of what to do — they never get into the details of war fighting, it is for the military leadership to provide options," a former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GoC-in-C), said.
On occasion, even field commanders have dissented in the heat of the battle. As General Officer Commanding (GoC) 4 Corps, Lt General Sagat Singh, disobeyed his immediate superior, Eastern Army Commander Lt General JS Aurora's orders: not to cross the Meghana River in 1971. He launched an audacious heli-lift of his troops across the river, bypassing Pakistani defences in the race towards Dhaka.
In August 2020, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh trusted then Army Chief General MM Naravane to do the right thing.
WHAT IF GENERAL MM NARAVANE ORDERED INDIAN ARMY TO ATTACK THE CHINESE ON LAC?
What would have happened if General Naravane had authorised the artillery barrage? Analysts say the destruction of the tanks would have led to reprisals by the Chinese. This would force the Indian Army to launch an offensive to capture the PLA's Moldo Garrison just 25 kilometres away from the LAC. What would have followed would be anyone's guess.
Fortunately, what happened instead was that General Naravane assessed that the Chinese tanks were headed towards Indian positions to intimidate rather than attack.
In the excerpts from Four Stars of Destiny, now quoted in a magazine article, General Naravane wrote that he directed Northern Army commander Lt General YK Joshi to move a troop of four Indian tanks right to the forward slopes of the pass and depress their guns, "so the PLA would be staring down the barrels of our guns". This was done forthwith, according to the article. The PLA tanks, which had by then reached a few hundred metres of the hilltop, stopped in their tracks.
"Their light tanks would have been no match for our medium tanks. It was a game of bluff and the PLA blinked first," General Naravane wrote.
In the case of Operation Parakram, General Sundararajan Padmanabhan, who passed away in 2024, never wrote a book, but books and research papers that analysed the stand-off describe a political leadership wary of nuclear war, turning down multiple military options from land and air strikes across the LoC at POK to hitting the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) headquarters in Bahawalpur. Former Air Chief ACM S Krishnaswamy confirmed this, saying air strikes at Bahawalpur and deploying the Navy for blockade of Karachi were declined.
WAS GENERAL MM NARAVANE RIGHT IN SEEKING POLITICAL FEEDBACK?
Was General Naravane rightly cautious in dialling the political leadership? Yes, say military analysts.
Things were different in the case of China. Protocols drawn up by both sides since 1996 expressly prohibited the use of force or military mobilisation. This is exactly what the PLA violated when they sent in two infantry divisions backed by tanks and artillery on the LAC with India in Ladakh. This mobilisation backstopped a series of skirmishes with the Indian Army all along the LAC in Ladakh, blatantly violating all "peace and tranquillity" agreements. The Indian Army, however, decided to err on the side of caution.
"When [we] went through the Kailash Range operations without firing a bullet, from there to escalate is a big step. Anyone would be very wary of firing a shot because that tactical permission has geo-strategic ramifications, and hence, I don't see anything wrong in the chief asking for orders," said Lt General PR Shankar, former Director General Artillery.
What General Naravane left unsaid in his memoirs was that the Indian Army had deployed T-90 tanks to Ladakh several years before the standoff with China began.
A former Corps Commander mentions how the Indian Army had worked out specific tactics for its T-90s to move up on ridges to counter the PLA's lighter and faster light tanks. It was these tactics that came in handy in 2020, as during the face-off with the PLA. It left the PLA aware of the fact that they faced an evenly-matched adversary who would be no pushover. The Ladakh standoff finally led to a de-escalation in October 2024.
"Everyone has done the right thing in Ladakh, yet the entire episode reeks of making a failure out of a success," said Lt General Shankar.
Four days after a deadly terror attack by Pakistani terrorists on India's Parliament on December 11, 2001, India's political leadership launched Operation Parakram, the largest peacetime mobilisation of the Indian armed forces on the border with Pakistan. In one of the meetings during the deployment, Army chief General S Padmanabhan (now retired) asked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee what his orders were. "Aap chaliye, hum batayenge (go ahead, we will tell you what to do)," an officer privy to the conversation said.
The orders to punish Pakistan for supporting cross-border terrorism, however, never came. There were multiple reasons for this, including US pressure and fears of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, which led to the restraint. The Army was deployed along the border with Pakistan for nearly 10 months before the troops were called back to barracks.
Cut to Ladakh in 2020. Former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane (Retd) said in his unpublished memoir, Four Stars of Destiny, that he was handed a "hot potato" at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
The former Army Chief said he waited for orders during a hair-trigger situation when Chinese tanks were advancing towards Indian positions in August 2020. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh advised him — "Jo uchit samjho, woh karo - (exercise your judgement)." China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) was furious at being outsmarted by an Indian Army deployment which captured the Kailash Range, south of the Pangong Tso Lake. They moved tanks towards Indian positions.
It was a knife-edge moment because this was the only occasion during the standoff where the Indian Army contemplated using heavy artillery. A single salvo from a battery of six 155-mm Bofors guns can saturate an area the size of 10 football fields with a tonne of explosives, stopping tanks dead in their tracks.
The Opposition has accused the government of vacillating during the standoff. It's easy to see the Ladakh episode as a case of politicians shrugging away responsibility. But a closer look at military "hot potatoes" over the last 78 years suggests that India's political class only gives the broad outlines of military action and rarely interferes with the conduct of military operations.
HOW INDIA'S POLITICAL LEADERSHIP HAS GUIDED THE MILITARY SINCE 1947
On October 27, 1947, Prime Minster Jawaharlal Nehru sent in the Indian Army to evict Pakistani raiders in Jammu and Kashmir. On January 1, 1949, after 15 months of conflict, he accepted a call for a UN-mediated ceasefire. The ceasefire, however, left Pakistan in control of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).
In 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi instructed the Indian Armed Forces to liberate Bangladesh, but left the war fighting to her military. The military leadership correctly assessed that the capture of Dhaka would lead to the collapse of the Pakistani garrison.
In 1999, Prime Minister Vajpayee instructed the Army and Air Force to conduct operations to evict Pakistan Army intruders in Kargil, but without crossing the LoC. The Pakistan Army was evicted, but at a heavy cost, with 527 Indian soldiers being killed.
The rare occasion where the political class interfered with the conduct of military operations, was during the 1962 war with China, and India paid a heavy price.
Leaked drafts of the still-classified Henderson Brookes report point to numerous tactical mistakes driven by political pressure leading to a defeat in the 1962 war. Egregious mistakes included a public proclamation by Prime Minister Nehru that he had asked the Indian Army to throw out the intruding PLA. When the Chinese attacked on October 20, 1962, IAF fighter jets were not launched to strike at the PLA's logistical lines, a deeply divisive decision, even now.
In May 2020, India's political leadership ordered the largest military mobilisation in Ladakh since the 1962 war with China. Two army corps comprising over 50,000 soldiers backed by tanks and artillery were sent to the theatre. Most importantly, unlike in 1962, IAF fighter jets were readied for offensive air strikes against the PLA. While ordering these deployments, the political leadership implicitly trusted the military leadership on the ground and in command, to do the right thing.
"India's political leadership are not military strategists, they give you the broad contours of what to do — they never get into the details of war fighting, it is for the military leadership to provide options," a former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GoC-in-C), said.
On occasion, even field commanders have dissented in the heat of the battle. As General Officer Commanding (GoC) 4 Corps, Lt General Sagat Singh, disobeyed his immediate superior, Eastern Army Commander Lt General JS Aurora's orders: not to cross the Meghana River in 1971. He launched an audacious heli-lift of his troops across the river, bypassing Pakistani defences in the race towards Dhaka.
In August 2020, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh trusted then Army Chief General MM Naravane to do the right thing.
WHAT IF GENERAL MM NARAVANE ORDERED INDIAN ARMY TO ATTACK THE CHINESE ON LAC?
What would have happened if General Naravane had authorised the artillery barrage? Analysts say the destruction of the tanks would have led to reprisals by the Chinese. This would force the Indian Army to launch an offensive to capture the PLA's Moldo Garrison just 25 kilometres away from the LAC. What would have followed would be anyone's guess.
Fortunately, what happened instead was that General Naravane assessed that the Chinese tanks were headed towards Indian positions to intimidate rather than attack.
In the excerpts from Four Stars of Destiny, now quoted in a magazine article, General Naravane wrote that he directed Northern Army commander Lt General YK Joshi to move a troop of four Indian tanks right to the forward slopes of the pass and depress their guns, "so the PLA would be staring down the barrels of our guns". This was done forthwith, according to the article. The PLA tanks, which had by then reached a few hundred metres of the hilltop, stopped in their tracks.
"Their light tanks would have been no match for our medium tanks. It was a game of bluff and the PLA blinked first," General Naravane wrote.
In the case of Operation Parakram, General Sundararajan Padmanabhan, who passed away in 2024, never wrote a book, but books and research papers that analysed the stand-off describe a political leadership wary of nuclear war, turning down multiple military options from land and air strikes across the LoC at POK to hitting the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) headquarters in Bahawalpur. Former Air Chief ACM S Krishnaswamy confirmed this, saying air strikes at Bahawalpur and deploying the Navy for blockade of Karachi were declined.
WAS GENERAL MM NARAVANE RIGHT IN SEEKING POLITICAL FEEDBACK?
Was General Naravane rightly cautious in dialling the political leadership? Yes, say military analysts.
Things were different in the case of China. Protocols drawn up by both sides since 1996 expressly prohibited the use of force or military mobilisation. This is exactly what the PLA violated when they sent in two infantry divisions backed by tanks and artillery on the LAC with India in Ladakh. This mobilisation backstopped a series of skirmishes with the Indian Army all along the LAC in Ladakh, blatantly violating all "peace and tranquillity" agreements. The Indian Army, however, decided to err on the side of caution.
"When [we] went through the Kailash Range operations without firing a bullet, from there to escalate is a big step. Anyone would be very wary of firing a shot because that tactical permission has geo-strategic ramifications, and hence, I don't see anything wrong in the chief asking for orders," said Lt General PR Shankar, former Director General Artillery.
What General Naravane left unsaid in his memoirs was that the Indian Army had deployed T-90 tanks to Ladakh several years before the standoff with China began.
A former Corps Commander mentions how the Indian Army had worked out specific tactics for its T-90s to move up on ridges to counter the PLA's lighter and faster light tanks. It was these tactics that came in handy in 2020, as during the face-off with the PLA. It left the PLA aware of the fact that they faced an evenly-matched adversary who would be no pushover. The Ladakh standoff finally led to a de-escalation in October 2024.
"Everyone has done the right thing in Ladakh, yet the entire episode reeks of making a failure out of a success," said Lt General Shankar.