On Friday, the chief of army staff, Gen. Bipin Rawat, recorded three firsts in his annual press conference ahead of Army Day (January 15). Each of them used to be spoken in hushed undertones earlier. He has now put them firmly on the table. The first of these is that the Indian Army is wilfully targeting Pakistani army posts across the Line of Control by violating the rules of a ceasefire agreed in 2003. Second, the Army is carrying out a re-deployment of forces to the northern frontier with China, which effectively changes its order of battle.
Third, that if the skirmishing on the Line of Control escalates and there is a political command to cross the border into Pakistan, New Delhi will call Islamabad’s nuclear bluff. True, these strategies began to take shape about five years ago. But so far India has been shy of admitting to them on the record, least of all at the level of the army chief. Not so with the deep-selected Rawat who superseded two senior officers to be hand-picked for the office of army chief by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Gen.
Rawat has two huge advantages—his combat and command experience through nearly each of the army’s major formations in Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeast and the South. Second, he has the political mandate to articulate military policy. Indeed, Rawat also said it was important for the Army to go beyond its mandate in cooperating with the government such as in building a railway bridge in Mumbai.
Using his rich experience on the ground, the General illustrated with great clarity the 73-day stand-off at Doklam in Bhutan in June-August last year and the encounter with the Chinese near Tuting in Arunachal Pradesh last fortnight. The big picture he presented was that the Chinese were getting more assertive but India was not being a pushover. He went on to emphasise the importance of diplomacy but added that if it came to armed conflict India could not expect to receive physical support from its neighbouring countries.
While the General’s smart and glib language eminently fills in a gap—his predecessor Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag in particular was frequently at a loss for words when explaining policy—the dangers of misinterpretation down the ranks risks a belligerence that a professional military would normally avoid in a rough neighbourhood. When an aggressive tone segues into a hardline political command, the dangers of sabre-rattling escalate.