Chandigarh: As part of its ongoing ‘decolonising’ endeavours, the Indian Army (IA) has officially launched a programme to study ancient Sanskrit and Tamil texts from the 4th century BCE to the 8th century C, to ‘rediscover’ the country’s rich heritage in ‘statecraft, warcraft, diplomacy and grand strategy’ in order to operationally implement it all in the prevailing regional nuclear weapons environment.
According to the Press Information Bureau (PIB), this programme is being undertaken under Operation Udbhav (Evolution), initiated by the IA on September 29 in collaboration with the United Service Institution of India or USI in New Delhi. It focuses on a ‘broad spectrum’ that included ancient indigenous military systems alongside the study of contemporary historical and regional texts and kingdoms.
Udbhav aims to concentrate on the writings of Kautilya (Arthashastra), the post-Mauryan Kamandaka (Nitisara) and those of the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar (Tirukkural) in an attempt to ‘bridge historical (concepts) with the contemporary’ and to ‘integrate age-old wisdom with modern military pedagogy’, the PIB stated.
The Operation was inaugurated at a high-powered panel discussion in the USI on the ‘Evolution of Indian military systems, war fighting and strategic thought: Current research in the field and the way forward’, chaired by retired Lieutenant General Vinod Khandare, principal adviser to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The keynote address was delivered by Lt Gen Raju Baijal who heads the IA’s Strategic Planning Directorate at Army Headquarters in Delhi.
The PIB said the panel discussion at USI, attended by several retired and serving officers and analysts, centred on India’s ‘rich and often understudied strategic and military heritage’. Reintroducing these into contemporary military and strategic domains could lead to a ‘more profound understanding of international relations as well as foreign nations’, the statement declared.
A poster for ‘Udbhav’.
This initiatory symposium was an adjunct to the IAs 2021 compilation of Indian battlefield stratagems, based on ancient texts, that were anthologised in “Pramparik Bhartiya Darshan…Ranniti aur Netriyta ke shahwat Niyam’ or Traditional Indian Philosophy…Eternal rules of warfare and leadership’. Detailing 75 past aphorisms, this tome has been recommended reading for all IA ranks for some two years.
A cross-section of service veterans, however, disagreed with formalising and sanctifying Udbhav.
“Warfare has changed so much over several millennia, that ancient weaponry, tactics and military planning have little or no relevance in today’s techno-heavy battlefield,” said defence analyst Major General Amrit Pal Singh (retired). Besides, in the absence of a national security doctrine today, the study of strategic and tactical warfare in ancient texts, however deep and seminal, makes little sense for India’s armed forces, he stated.
Even Kautilya’s Arthasahstra, declared the former two-star cavalry officer, decreed as much by arguing that all rulers needed to ascertain that their armies were not, in any way, endangered for lack of strategic guidance and direction. This latter critical aspect, he added, was unfortunately non-existent in India presently and, if anything, needed ancient wisdom to summarily rectify.
A former MoD senior official said Udbhav was an attempt at ‘excavating the past’ in an era of strategic nuclear weapons, network centricity and Artificial Intelligence. There is an attempt at glorifying the past with little movement on rectifying the myriad inefficiencies in modernising the military that were simply glossed over, he declared, declining to be named. It almost seems as if the MoD wants past glories to be an alibi for 21st-century ineptitudes, he added
Udbhav, meanwhile, is part of the Indian military’s wider attempt at ‘de-colonisation’ in the Amrit Kaal era till 2047, as recently decreed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This undertaking encompasses shedding most, if not all, its links, traditions and customs from the colonial era, from which it is descended, to swiftly emerge as an atamnirbhar or wholly indigenous force in thought, form, look and content. This is a goal senior military officers from all three services are zealously pursuing currently, much to the chagrin of a generation of veterans, who expressed apocalyptic despair over such moves.
The IA evolved under the East India Company, and later the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries, whilst the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) and the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) came into being in 1934 and 1932 respectively, becoming the IN and the IAF after independence. Understandably, all three embraced and, over decades, perpetuated many of their progenitors’ customs, conventions and practices which, analysts unanimously agreed, comprised the fundamentals of most of the world’s militaries and served to perpetuate their elan.
Last year, for instance, the IAs Adjutant’s General branch embarked, on government directions, to begin ending ‘archaic and antiquated’ colonial traditions, dress codes, pipe and drum bands, colour presentations and investiture ceremonies. Affiliation of units with those in foreign armies it had fought alongside in the two World Wars, caste and ethnically specific regiments raised by the British like Sikh, Gurkha, Jat and Rajput, amongst a myriad others, were also likely to be discontinued for their colonial overhang.
Rescinding the long-established British tradition of appointing one-star officers and above as ‘honorary colonels’, or ‘eminence grise’ to their former battalions or regiments, in recognition of their services, too was under consideration, official sources said. One senior officer said that this latter appointment was akin to that off an ‘agony aunt’ for the unit and doing away with it would only deprive it of not only a well-wisher but, at times, a problem resolver.
Moreover, the affiliation of army units with foreign armies, especially those that fought alongside it in the two World Wars, too would be critically examined by the Adjutant General, as would curtailing the frequency of individual regimental events and reunions.
Even National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in an interview last June to India Today TV railed against the IA’s Colonial traditions which, he said compared unfavourably with the nationalistic Azad Hind Fauj or Indian National Army (INA), raised by freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose in 1942 to fight the British in Burma during WW2 under Japanese command. The 70,000-strong INA, comprising prisoners of war Doval said, was ‘like no other’ and had sacrificed 40,000 personnel. The INA, the NSA had then declared, were true ‘soldiers of India’, organised into regiments named after Mahatma Gandhi and Rani Jhansi, unlike those in the IA.
In the meantime, the IN recently did one better in its attempts at atamnirbharta.
At its recent Commanders conference, its two and three-star officers deliberated the prospects of incorporating the hitherto proscribed kurta-pyjamas as an accepted dress form in naval messes, wardrooms, official establishments and on formal occasions. The bi-annual conference in early September, meant to discuss weighty operational matters in an increasingly turbulent neighbourhood, featured possible variations of its proposed dress for approval by Union minister of state for defence Ajay Bhatt. This included included a mannequin exhibiting the shorter kurti, worn under a waistcoat and drainpipe pyjamas.
The IN has taken the lead over the other two services in shedding its numerous colonial moorings. In July, for instance, it discontinued the Royal Navy practice of its senior officers carrying batons on the grounds that it did not suit the ‘transformed navy of Amrit Kaal’, soon after its ensign, or flag was indigenised, shorn of its colonial antecedents that had featured the blood-red Cross of St George for decades. Alongside, the IN also inducted a new atamnirbhar President’s Standard and Colour and a revised desi crest.
The IAF, however, unlike the IA and the IN was relatively less influenced by its colonial forerunners from the Royal Air Force . But it too has not escaped the overall ‘nativising’ milieu and is believed to be ruminating some cosmetic changes.
In conclusion, it now seems that as part of this atmanirbharta quest on the military’s part, the missing gap is in doctrinally instituting ancient wisdom as a force multiplier into its overall functioning and actions. It would, however, behoove the IA to follow one of Kautilya’s prime instructions: One who cannot determine his goals, cannot win.