Title: The hell where
youth and laughter go...
Author: Varsha Bhosle
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Daet: March 7, 2000
Before we continue with
our musing on the Counter Insurgency And Jungle Warfare Training School,
we need to make a point regarding the Kargil Committee Report and its observations
on Pakistan's notorious Operation Topac. In May 1998, Home Minister LK
Advani had referred to the "three-phase plan put together by Gen Zia ul
Haq" to "liberate" Kashmir. Indian commentators have, at various times,
written that the former Pakistan President spelt out project details of
Op Topac at a meeting of the ISI in April 1988, a few months before he
was killed in an aircrash over Bhawalpur.
Zia's speech included
exhortations like: "Let there be no mistake that our aim remains quite
clear and firm: the liberation of Kashmir Valley... shrewdness and intelligence,
power to persevere under pressure and political intrigue were some Kashmiri
qualities that could be exploited." He warned that the use of foreign mercenaries
would require detailed and ingenious planning because the 1965 Indo-Pak
war, code-named Op Gibraltar, held "many lessons for us." On arming Kashmiri
insurgents, he said: "We have managed to accumulate large stocks of modern
arms and ammunition from the US consignments intended for the Afghan mujahideens...
It will be disastrous to believe we can take on India in a straight contest.
We must be careful and maintain a low military profile so that the Indians
do not find an excuse to pre-empt us by attacking at a time and point of
their choice." Naturally, we believed in Op Topac as an article of faith...
But now, Subbu Mama's
report states: "One of the most realistic assessments of Kashmir developments
as they unfolded during Pakistan's proxy war was 'Operation TOPAC,' a war
game written by a team of retired Indian Army officers in 1989. It is interesting
to note that 'Op TOPAC' has since been mistakenly attributed even by high
placed Indian officials and agencies to General Zia-ul-Haq. This shows
how close the authors of 'Op TOPAC' were able to get into the mind of the
Pakistani establishment in relation to their aims in J&K." Eh...? A
war game?? Meaning, disinformation and propaganda against Pakistan?!
We chewed our nails over
it till we got confirmation: In 1986, Zia *did* conceive and frame a programme
for ISI-backed insurgency in India. In 1988, Zia *did* give the speech
at the ISI meeting. In 1989, the speech and the programme were analysed
by two retired generals of the Indian Army, Afzal Karim and Mathew Thomas,
in the International Defence Review. Since the gentlemen did not know the
actual code name used by Pakistan, they came up with "Op Topac-Amru" (who,
by the way, was a king of Latin America). The project is real, it exists;
the insurgency trouble that India is undergoing *had* been set in place
by Zia in 1988. Only the name that Indians know it by, was given by our
military think-tank. The words 'Op Topac' may have been mistakenly attributed
by high placed Indian officials and agencies to Gen Zia-ul-Haq -- but the
programme hasn't "mistakenly" been. Subbu Mama has done a disservice by
merely touching over the matter in fleeting and thus unnecessarily introducing
demons.
That said, we return
to the CIJWS... We've so far told you about some of the instructors and
the heads of the two wings. The third senior officer we met, and trailed
till we left the premises, was the head of the Faculty of Studies, Col
Sanjay Holey of our Maratha LI... And now please let us digress as usual:
One cannot escape Chhatrapati Shivaji when one comes in contact with the
Indian Army; for instance, at the entrance of the Brigade HQ in Uri, J&K,
there stands a huge statue of the glory of the Marathas. At every mess
we've visited, portraits and busts of the founder of Hindu pad badshahi
have stared down upon Bhosle. And so when we came across the painting at
the CIJWS, we asked Maj S Vinod of Gurkha, a cute Mallu from Trivandrum,
what Raje Shivaji was doing in, of all the places, Mizoram. Answer: "This
school is the one place where the presence of Shivaji is a must, for he
was the first exponent of unconventional warfare in India."
You know how it is, when
you grow up with tales of valour, you stop seeing its heroes objectively.
Yes we knew that Shivaji invented guerrilla warfare here, but how others
perceive his unorthodox and inspired methods, was a revelation to us. To
illustrate, Maj Vinod related Shivaji's taking of Sinhagad from Udaybhan
Rathod, a serf of Aurangzeb, in 1670. On the night of 4 February, 300 Marathas,
under Tanaji Malusare, reached the foot of the impregnable fort. Tanaji
tied a rope around a "ghorpad," a large Iguana-like lizard, and had it
climb the one unguarded, sheer facade -- and scaled the wall with the help
of that rope. Once up, he threw down the other ropes he was carrying, to
let selected men climb into the fort. Some engaged in battle with the Rajputs,
while others opened the Kalyan Darwaza to let the waiting Marathas in.
The lizard and the ropes indicate a planned operation... Result: the conquering
of Sinhagad -- with 500 Rajputs and only 50 Marathas dead. Maximum gains
with minimum casualties... the core of CI ops.
In truth, we shimmied
up so much to CIJWS admin, that we were eventually allowed to sit in a
class or two. The first we attended discussed the shift in insurgency from
rural to urban; the last, conducted by Col Holey, was a "sand model" of
a search-and-cordon op. That is, the students were given details of a hypothetical
situation wherein they had to demonstrate on a large model of Silchar town,
how they would cordon off the area which a terrorist was going to visit
and how they would neutralise attacks.
We expected exciting
gung-ho stuff. Instead, we got: How to provide security to the local population;
establish rapport with the people; develop liaison with civil authorities;
network intelligence, etc, etc. All utterly ho-hum till: how to dominate
the area and neutralise maximum UGs, "undergrounds," for terrorists. Note:
MOUT is military ops on urbanised terrain; tpt, transport; ab, airborne;
str, strength; coy, company; heptr, chopper -- the army is stark raving
bonkers about abbreviations! As we started listening, we soon realised
that though all that martial machismo certainly is important, more crucial
is plain old administrative know-how. There was a long sermon on how man-made
cnstr (constructions) impact on tac (tactical) options open to cdrs (commanders),
who must treat the elements of urban sprawl as trn (terrain) and know how
this trn affects the capabilities of units and wpn (weapons). We bugged
our class-mate for an explanation of every sixth word.
Naturally, we can't tell
you the tacs imparted (though now we know why Hollywood films show cops
entering a terrorist-held building always from the top and never the bottom),
but some illustrative anecdotes were cleared. Like the time when Col NJ
Nair of 16 Maratha LI set out to capture a group of insurgents in Manipur.
The army had information that the terrorists used a certain ferry site
frequently, and the colonel and his men disguised themselves and worked
as boatmen in that area for more than a month. One day, the UGs took the
same boat that the colonel was plying -- and all were ferried to Hades
mid-stream... Or the time when Col Holey, while searching a house during
winter, casually moved the smoldering wood in the hearth. The fire caught,
the smoke rose, and down crashed a UG from the chimney... Or the time in
Sri Lanka when Col Holey and his QRT cordoned off an area upon definite
info of a terrorist sighting. The whole day they searched in vain and finally
returned to their post. That night, a villager snitched that the UGs had
been present all along -- perched in the tamarind tree from under which
the colonel had directed the operation...
We laughed the most when
Col Tiwari (officers from different wings often sit in to monitor classes),
was exasperated by a particularly stubborn student who disagreed on the
WHAM methods of evacuating civilian homes: "Charm them, damn it! Charm
them so much that the family will beg you to be their son-in-law! Arre
tum Bharat ke jawan ho. Open up your faculties! Pitch a tent in their garden;
offer money; keep them in a 5-star hotel! Aggression is not the solution."
Then there was the awful footnote on how to handle the media during CI
ops: We cringed into our seat as Col Holey said, "Even if you know that
an employee of, say, the water works department is sympathetic to insurgents,
do not hold on to him for interrogation and keep him from his job. For
the next day, the Press will report that the army has denied water to Silchar."
About 27 pairs of semi-hostile eyes had turned towards us...
Despite all the technical
details, the bottom-line of the instruction was plain: There are NO set
solutions in CI ops -- only the pitfalls, based on lethal experiences,
can be indicated. Everything, even vehicles requisitioned from the civic
administration, have to be checked for IEDs. On-the-spot command, quick
thinking, is what saves lives. And, no civilian, no source can ever be
trusted with or for information since every civilian can be coerced by
terrorists. For instance, the time when 11 soldiers died when a trusted
informer led the coy into an ambush. The difficulties inherent in CI ops
cannot be fathomed without hearing from the other side.
It was wonderful to sit
along with the young captains and majors and hear their take on deadly
scenarios. Even though they were students here, they weren't greenhorns
-- all of them had faced enemy fire, and many of them had commendation
medals. They were the same guys whom we had gotten to know quite well in
our antagonise-them mood during our daily Happy Hour. But after this class,
we worried over how the constraints of political correctness would let
them operate freely in situations of unconventional warfare. For rules
of battle do not apply to terrorists -- and shouldn't apply to their pursuers,
either...
That evening, the bar
was free of all the students. We were grumbling to GS, Why do we get along
famously with your over-40 officers and clash with the young ones...? The
wise man explained, "The young are still finding themselves, they are sifting
through their ideologies. Didn't you do that during college? Once they
get the experience, they will settle down. Don't worry! I know them, they
are alright." But where are they?! "Oh, the term is over. Tomorrow is the
passing-out and they will return to their respective posts thereafter.
Tonight, they are having a party in the garden -- some bonding is taking
place," he smiled.
Without the students'
boisterous revelry, the bar was no fun; we wrapped up. Later that night,
from our room we could see the party in full swing. The loud strains of
D-I-S-C-O were drowned by their voices as they sang along and danced with
each other. We could see them: some in windcheaters, some in suits. It
was like any urban Gen-X group at a pub, minus the girls. Just that morning,
we had spied an Asterix book smuggled into class -- they were so like urban
college students. And I thought, tomorrow they go to their posts, perhaps
at Siachen, to fall into a crevice; perhaps at Poonch, to fall to a Paki
bullet. And I remembered a verse from the WW I poem by Siegfried Sassoon:
You smug-faced crowds
with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and
pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.
