Ashok K Mehta  

India has lost more soldiers in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East than in all the wars it has fought. Eighty per cent of these casualties are from the infantry

Why has the sword arm of the Indian Army, its infantry, been neglected for 13 years? Only this month, due to the efforts of Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat, has the long-awaited proposal for personal weapons and equipment for the infantry — assault rifle, carbine, LMG and sniper rifle — been finally cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council (for mainly Buy and some Make-In-India, as it were). But few have asked why this less than rupees 2.5 billion investment in the fighting soldier has taken so long to materialise. We spent nine billion dollars for 36 Rafale aircraft and four billion dollar for aircraft carrier Vikramaditya. But the infantry gets a raw deal. The last conventional war was fought in 1971; the last border skirmish was in 1999. But Pakistan has not ceased its proxy war for the last 30 years. In the forefront of any war in history is infantry or foot soldier — the boots on the ground. And it is the infantry alone which has not ceased to be at war with Pakistan since 1947 given its deployment on the LoC.

In 1999, Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry, in the guise of terrorists, occupied heights from Drass to beyond Batalik. Vacating the aggression was left to the Army, which was mandated to get the job done without crossing the red line (LoC). This was a strategically flawed and costly decision. The victim was the poor infantryman who was asked to mount attacks uphill, mostly frontally as the tactically more feasible and less costly options were closed. The infantry has suffered the heaviest casualties per capita of all wars. Had there been no embargo on crossing the LoC, infantry casualties would have been one-third less than the 500-plus suffered. Epic battles were fought, just not on Tiger Hill and Tololing but at other locations too. This border skirmish saw classic infantry battles being fought in the words of the then Chief, Gen Ved Malik, ‘with what we have’’. There was a big hole in the operational preparedness of both infantry and artillery that but for South Africa and Israel coming to our help with ammunition and equipment would have left us high and dry.

In 1988, similarly, the encounter at Bana Post in Siachen is memorable. It earned a PVC, MVC, VRC and several other awards for the combatants, probably per capita the most highly decorated post in Jammu and Kashmir. Point 1362 in Kargil had been captured twice in 1965 — and returned both times to Pakistan and retaken again in 1971, that time for keeps. In each of these sterling infantry battles, there is a story of valour conquering all odds.

Since the proxy war picked up in J&K in 1989, counterterrorism operations have intensified and what’s missing has been the required quality personal weapons and protective gear for soldiers. The fencing up since 2003 is now ineffective due to its use-by date being over and the proposal to replace it with a smart-fence has been dropped. The infantry is handicapped by a lack of state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to defeat infiltration. A majority of frontline soldiers have old 7.62 mm INSAS rifles — some were sold to the then Royal Nepal Army to fight the Maoists but they complained about its inefficiency. Some AK 47 rifles and vintage sniper rifles have been provided along the LoC. The deficiency of high-quality bulletproof jackets and modern helmets is another handicap for the infantry.

From 2003 onward, proposals were mooted for the family of weapons systems the infantry needs several times. These were either rejected because the Request for Proposals were fanciful and aspirational or because there was a scam or due to a single-vendor situation. No Service Chief for the last 15 years took it upon himself to intervene and catch the bull by its horns though fully cognizant that the only war being fought is on the LoC and to a lesser extent in the North-East by the infantry. Finally, this month, clearance was obtained to purchase essential equipment on a fast-track system which could take up to two years. Personal weapons for the rest of the army will be in the “make” category; so far, not a single Make-In-India contract with a foreign vendor involving transfer of technology has materialized despite talk of the ease of doing business. The Make-in-India Rafale was killed before it got on to the runway.

The essential question is: Why has the Army neglected the infantry soldier’s modernization for so long? The trend emerged in 1988 when the then Chief of Army Staff Gen Sundarji would spend days with every combat arm and combat support arm discussing their problems and reviewing projects for modernization. The only exception to his comprehensive review was the infantry, the so-called queen of battle, whose turn for review with the Chief never arrived. When an Armoured Corps Chief replaced one who died in harness -Gen Shankar Roy Choudhury replacing Gen Bipin Joshi, the former publicly announced on an Infantry Day reunion in New Delhi: “the Infantry is the Army”(and someone close-by prompted him to also use the reverse formulation: ‘the Army is the infantry’. That was in the late 1990s and each word spoken by the then Chief about the infantry remains etched on stone.

Gen Bipin Rawat last month also said rather belatedly “it is high time we switched focus from Pakistan to China”’. After decades I have heard a Chief rationalize on switching operational priorities and declaring his intent of shedding India’s Pakistan obsession. When I joined the Army in 1959 I was told repeatedly that your short-term enemy is Pakistan but China is the long term dushman. This was never translated on the ground. Regardless of the dual threat it is clear that for the foreseeable future, Pakistan will keep the LoC hot and China will raise the ante on the LAC without vertical escalation. This will keep the infantry busy on both fronts.

Infantry is an arm of daily use: Soldiers march past on Republic Day parade, lay yoga mats on Rajpath and fight on the LoC and in the hinterland. This Great Indian Soldier is God’s gift to India. Never have so many done so much for so little for the country and at such high cost. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), India has lost more soldiers in J&K and the North East than in all the wars it has fought. 80 per cent of these casualties are from the infantry. Adorning the India Gate is the Unknown Soldier. He is an infantryman. Let’s make the Unknown more known.

(Ashok K Mehta is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)

Courtesy: Pioneer: Wednesday, 28 February 2018