Maj Gen Sudhir Vombatkere (Retd.), strategic affairs commentator, speaks with Col Anil Bhat (Retd.) on applying India's ancient military wisdom to address its security challenges | SAM Conversation
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00:00Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor, to discuss Project Udbhav,
00:17which was a collaboration between Indian Army and the United Service Institution of India
00:23to explore India's military heritage. It is our pleasure to welcome Major General Sudhir
00:31Vambedkare, an Army Sapper's or Engineer's Officer, who was commended by the Guinness
00:40Records for designing and executing the construction of the Khardung La Bridge in 1982. At 18,380
00:52feet, it was then the highest bridge in the world and he had it made on an ice foundation. That is
00:59not his only talent. He has been a very active Strategic Affairs Analyst, who has been commenting
01:17on many vital issues. Welcome to South Asia Monitor, Sir. Thank you, Colonel Anil Bhatt.
01:29Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. Sir, actually, I think we can say it's a case of
01:40when you start exploring the military treatises or war literature, ancient war literature in India.
01:59We have the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, Pautilya's Arthashastra, Bhanu Bhatta's Harsha Charitra,
02:10Chanakya's Neeti, Chanakya Neeti with its seven principles, the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda,
02:18Sam Veda, Atharva Veda and the seven principles of Chanakya's Neeti. Knowledge is power,
02:33discipline and focus, plan strategically, adaptability, choose associates wisely,
02:41learn from failure and hard work and patience. The principles of war in the Western world are
02:50as framed by the British Army which raised the Indian Army. They are about exactly the same,
03:02only in different words. The question that comes up is, did we at all use any of these
03:16principles? Did any of our founding leaders think of delving into this literature, these treatises?
03:29Let's look at the 1947-48 war, the first one with Pakistan, the 1962 India-China war, the 1965
03:42India-Pakistan war, the 1971 India-Pakistan war and the very long low intensity war or export of
03:57terrorism that has been on from Pakistan. I request you to throw light on all of these.
04:12Okay, I have got that but before I answer your question, I would like to just make a few
04:25observations on the title of this event today, this program and on the project Udbhav. The title
04:37of today's interview is applying India's ancient military wisdom to address its security challenges.
04:47Now, it is about India's ancient military wisdom. I just would like to say that wisdom is something
05:00which only a person possesses and knowledge is different. Knowledge can be possessed by people,
05:08it can be possessed by society but wisdom can only be possessed by people and Chanakya definitely
05:17possessed wisdom and he put down from his wisdom, he set out the Arthashastra, he wrote it and the
05:26Arthashastra is a body of knowledge and that body of knowledge is Artha means on economic and
05:34political issues and this Shastra in this case, it means book or manual or a compendium of the
05:45principles which he has expounded. Now, a knowledge as I said can be with people, it can be in books,
05:54it can be with society but wisdom is something which transcends time and space or time and place.
06:02So, to say that the wisdom, the military wisdom of Chanakya belongs to India or belongs to Hindus
06:14is not right. It transcends time and space and it belongs to humanity. Similarly, the art of war,
06:24the Chinese general Sun Tzu, now his art of war also shows wisdom. He has set it down in his book
06:33Art of War. It belongs not to Chinese but to humanity as a whole and while it belongs to
06:41humanity, let us understand that neither the knowledge nor the wisdom gives us any ownership
06:48over it. Anybody can use it and coming to Chanakya's wisdom, it is overarching. It overarches
06:58many subjects and the four subjects which are the major subjects which he talks about in Arthashastra
07:05are statecraft, economics, politics and the military. Military is also one of the issues in
07:15Arthashastra. Now, coming to the strategy, what Chanakya says in his Arthashastra is really
07:28what is called real politic. It is being able to run politics or run diplomacy through
07:38particular case circumstances rather than based only on ideology or on some particular code.
07:49So, this Arthashastra is real politic and therefore it is not Hindu. It belongs, as I said,
07:56to humanity. Now, coming to Project Udbhav, its objective is limited. It is not strategic.
08:07It is rather limited and it has got some way to go before it becomes strategy. Now, to go to your
08:19question on how this military wisdom, if I may call it that, it is not military wisdom. It is
08:28the principles of war. The principles of war were used by our armed forces in 1947-48, in 1962 but
08:39the failure happened somewhere else and if that failure happened somewhere else, it is strange.
08:46We don't learn from successes. We only learn from failures and why is it that the Henderson
08:53Brooks report has not been made public even though it is 60 plus years since it was written.
09:05In all the subsequent operations also, the principles of war of Arthashastra were used
09:15whether it is following Arthashastra or not is not important. The point is those principles were
09:20used and those principles as I pointed out in my article were also used by the Muslim invaders.
09:27They were also used by the British and they were used very successfully. So, we have also in 1971,
09:34for example, one of the points of Arthashastra is that you have to choose the time of the war
09:44or the battle and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked then General Sam Manek show to take action
09:54to go into East Pakistan in June 1971. But he said no, if I go in now, I will run into
10:02trouble with the monsoon. So, I will choose my time and he chose a time and he made it December
10:10and that's how we won. So, you see the points with Arthashastra is not that why we didn't use
10:20Arthashastra, we did use it. It is not that the military principles of the 10 principles of war
10:28which we have learnt from the Western is nothing but the same as the Arthashastra principles of
10:35war. It is the same as Sun Tzu's principles of war. So, we have been very successful in using it.
10:42There have been failures of course, but then its shortcomings are there everywhere. Back to you.
10:50Thank you, sir. Thank you. Sir, you come up till 1971
10:58and you very pertinently brought out all the points.
11:07I would like to put across a point of our relationship with the Chinese,
11:13our military relationship with the Chinese on the very long line of actual control.
11:20In 1967, there were some skirmishes at Nathula Chola for a few weeks. We lost 67 personnel,
11:33they lost about 400 or more. The exact figure is not known, but they pressed very hard for us to
11:45come to an agreement of never firing at each other.
11:50They did not stop breaking all the rules of all the agreements that they made, but
11:59they made us or let's say we have been too soft in dealing with them, sir.
12:11What do you say? Where have we been? Too soft in dealing with them.
12:17No, I do not think so. In 1967, in fact, when the Chinese forces came up,
12:27they came south. It was General Sagar Singh who gave them a bloody nose and they have not forgotten
12:37that. Yes, sir, but after that, they said let's not fire at each other and then in 2020
12:43at Galwan, when they killed 20 of our personnel, we still dealt with them without any firearms.
12:52No, we must understand that the army, the armed forces, they execute the operations based on
13:03political will, political orders. So, the army went in without firearms because there must have
13:17been some instructions from Delhi, from the army headquarters perhaps and where army headquarters
13:24got their instructions from, we know. Sir, with all that happened, we are still
13:34following in the period between 1967 and you can say for 50 years. In 75 October, they killed
13:514 personnel of 5 Assam Rifles by torture, not by bullets. They made a mockery of keeping
14:04this relationship without bullets but otherwise, it was often managed, is managed by pushing,
14:15pulling and by fisticuffs. Our army is no less than any other army in the world.
14:23If we are given a free hand, I am sure we will give the Chinese a bloody nose on the border
14:29but the point is not on the border. There is further, it should not escalate where we may
14:35be at a disadvantage. So, there are reasons for us not pursuing these things further
14:44and it is about the encroachments that China is doing all along the border, some 3,400
14:51kilometers of LAC. They are encroaching in several places and they have got demand of the whole of
14:59Arunachal Pradesh, at least the northern part of Arunachal Pradesh and we have got to keep
15:07swallowing it because we are trying to handle it by diplomacy
15:11and the diplomacy is not working.
15:15Well, it just remains to be seen. The Indian soldier has shown tremendous
15:24patience and by not getting provoked even in 2020, there was a great reaction at the level of
15:36soldiers but it was done without firearms and the official figure was I think 43. I think the
15:43actual figure they say could go into almost 100. It is very sad, yes and after that affair was over
15:55and China decided to pull back and we also pulled back. They are following their policy
16:05of two steps forward and one step back and then they established a post little higher up in the
16:11Galwan Valley and we vacated the Kailash Heights. Why did we vacate the Kailash Heights?
16:21Very good question, sir. Why did we vacate those? They were giving us tremendous advantage.
16:26Exactly, exactly. So, it is not that the corps commander or the div commander
16:34didn't know what the hell he was doing. He must have been asked to vacate it.
16:41After all, he is a man with so much experience and he knows the advantage of occupying a height,
16:48overseeing the Chinese position and then after that, after we vacated the Kailash Heights,
16:55the Chinese have built a whole bridge across Pangong Tso.
16:58Yes, sir and it is not only that, sir. Even after the recent big, it was made much of
17:08that Dipsang and Demchok, they are withdrawing or we don't really know what it has amounted to
17:18because there are many questions regarding the patrolling, which is a part of managing
17:25this line of actual control. Yes.
17:28And there are maybe about 600 or 700 villages, which they made, which have military applications
17:36also. I mean, there are so many ways they are breaking the rules. We have had corps commander
17:45meetings, 24 of them, which are long, very long affairs, which amounted to nothing, sir.
17:55And it is just, it is not that this army lacks, like in two world wars, it got
18:06acknowledged as about the best army in the world and it is functioning like that. But
18:12up till the first many decades, when the Congress was in power, you could say, okay, they were soft.
18:23But as we see that since 2014 also, the capability of the Indian armed forces is certainly not being
18:36exercised and not with the aim of having a full-fledged war, but certainly to keep
18:47things in check, so to speak. Yes, you are right.
18:52Because unfortunately, both the Chinese and the Pakistanis understand the language of force
19:00much, much better than any other. I think they understand very well the
19:06language of force by the Indian army or by the Indian Air Force. They understand it very well.
19:13But in the case of Ladakh, where we had the Dalban incident, all those encroachments in
19:23Pangong Tso area also, all those areas, their encroachments were, they were very happy with
19:30what our Prime Minister said. He said, koine gosa. And that is what the Chinese are saying,
19:39then what are you complaining about? You said it, sir. In fact, it is the
19:44Defence Minister, who made this statement number of times, ki ek inch bhi nahi humne diya, ek inch
19:56bhi humne nahi liya, which became a little bit of a mockery because during the BRICS summit,
20:05finally, it came to light that there is some territory which they have taken and which they
20:13now say they will disengage from. These are all the smaller points. But my main
20:22thrust of my article and my argument is that China has, by using their strategy and expanding their
20:31influence into South Asia, they have, and you know, the meeting that happened on the 4th of
20:39October 2023 in Lhasa, the Chinese called the Pakistan top officials of Pakistan, of Bhutan,
20:48of Sri Lanka, of Bangladesh, they all came, they attended the meeting. And they said,
20:53we are calling this meeting in order to expand our economic, political and military influence
21:00in South Asia. So, they had a strategy, they are doing that. And 17 days, one seven days later,
21:08we had this Project Udbhav, which says that we are trying to improve our national security.
21:15I mean, why do we have such a limited aim? And in Project Udbhav, in the launching of Project Udbhav,
21:24there was the chief of air staff was present, the vice chief of the naval staff was present.
21:31And they didn't pull in the Navy and the Air Force into the Project Udbhav. It is only the army which
21:39has made this so-called, what do they call it, initiative, this foreseeing, yeah, some such word
21:53they used. And it is a vision of great foresight. But the point is that they did not call the Navy
22:09and the Air Force, they are not involved in this. And also, if it is a matter of national security,
22:16they should be also looking at other relevant ministries, because today the nation goes to war,
22:24not only the armed forces. So, you have to have the other key ministries also involved.
22:31The external affairs ministry, the home ministry, the finance ministry,
22:36the telecommunications ministry, all these key ministries have got to be involved.
22:45So that we can look at national security. Now, if you are looking at national security,
22:50do we have a national security policy? Do we have a strategy? We have the National Security Council,
22:58which was formed in Prime Minister Vajpayee's days. And it is still there. They haven't
23:05dissolved the National Security Council. And the chairperson of the NSC is ex officio,
23:12the Prime Minister of the country. And the National Information Advisor is the
23:22ex officio secretary of the NSC. But have you got a document? Have you created a document?
23:30And why is there no armed forces officer at a high level in the NSC? So, these are all questions
23:37that we need to address before we talk really about strategy. But in any case, we can see that
23:45they have limited it to linking up ancient wisdom with modern military practices to create a new
24:03new military pedagogy. That means they are going to be using it for training.
24:08What about actual fighting? So, these are the concerns which I have. It is very troubling
24:15to see that we are not facing up to the Chinese as we should be facing up to them.
24:22They have surrounded us in the north and from the west, north and east,
24:28and in the south through their string of pearls. We are completely surrounded.
24:36And now we had that port, Javahar port, we were using it. And today's morning's news,
24:44President Trump has put the sanctions back on Javahar port for us.
24:49So, we will have trouble in getting oil from there. So, we are getting pushed about the place.
25:00In fact, the Javahar port was going to be advantageous with the Afghan Taliban,
25:09you know, getting closer to India and also our relations with Iran.
25:17Iran where the Javahar port which has been developed by India.
25:25Yes, we have spent two billion dollars on Javahar port.
25:29Yes, yes. And all three countries would have benefited,
25:37and particularly Afghanistan, which, you know, needs a lot to be done for it.
25:43No, we were able to resist it so far by various means. But I hope we will resist this also.
25:50This morning, sir, you can check it out.
25:56It's not surprising because when you start talking about Trump sanctions, from whatever
26:02we've heard him, you know, say, whatever is being expected, it's fantasia, you know, it's
26:15part fantasy, which we never know he's trying to put into practice. Would you like to add
26:24anything more about what we should be doing?
26:28Yeah, what we could be doing is very important. According to Arthashastra,
26:34you have to go from within to out, you have to have a stable and wealthy state.
26:42And that comes through good governance, which is also part of Arthashastra.
26:49And we have got, we have got and it means that all the people should be satisfied in a good
26:56frame of mind, there should be social harmony and peace within the country,
27:02all part of Arthashastra. But we have got people who are trying to actively break fraternity.
27:11And the social unrest is not reducing, if at all it is increasing. And with that condition,
27:19how are we going to face an external enemy?