Why the Narrative on Manekshaw – India’s Uncrowned CDS – Is Captivating Military Veterans Now

Chandigarh: Veteran and serving Indian military officers never tire of repeating the narrative in which the Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) General S.H.F.J. Manekshaw – later Field Marshal – had resisted pressure from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to launch immediate military operations against East Pakistan in early 1971 to stem the flow of millions of Bengali refugees into India.

In March 1971, predominantly Bengali East Pakistan had revolted against the dominance of its Punjabi and Pathani western section, resulting in a brutal crackdown by the army with a similar ethnic mix which, in turn, had triggered the refugee exodus into India. Alongside, the Pakistan Army had also affected a pogrom of intellectuals and Bengali leaders, brutally killing over 50,000 of them in mass executions and shootings, further roiling the devastated region.

This refugee influx had imposed a crippling financial burden on India, in addition to straining the social and political fabric of its eastern states, the lingering consequences of which still endure, in one form or another. However, after touring the teeming refugee camps, Indira Gandhi asked Manekshaw what the Indian Army could do to control the situation.

“Nothing,” quipped Manekshaw – or so goes the account that bears retelling for its nerve and objective boldness, albeit much to the horror of Gandhi and her entourage of senior civil servants and ministers, as no one had ever dared to respond so brusquely and abruptly to the domineering leader, used to unquestioning assent. Backed by her eager-to-please cabinet, Gandhi wanted Manekshaw to swiftly conduct a surgical strike on East Pakistan, followed by the installation of a government led by Mujibur Rahman, the popular Bengali leader, and the subsequent return of refugees.

Manekshaw is believed to have listened patiently to the prime minister but retorted that while the army could be battle-ready three months later in June, indisputable military logic, India’s extant operational capability and logistical realities directed that November 1971 would tactically be the opportune moment to attack East Pakistan, primarily for two reasons.

The first was the fierce monsoon that renders the entire region a virtual lake, severely restricting vehicular and armed personnel movement, argued Manekshaw. The second, equally credible rationale for postponing operations, was the possible northern threat from China with whom India had fought a debilitating border war just nine years earlier, and come off worse.

India, he maintained in his vaunted briefing to Gandhi and her senior cabinet members and advisors, needed to guard against the prospect of fighting a two-front war, analogous to the precarious situation that presently looms along India’s disputed borders with collusive allies China and Pakistan. Such an outcome, the CoAS had declared, would present him with problems far more complex than what had been the tactical bane of the German general staff for more than 50 years across two World Wars.

It would also be unwise to rely on diplomatic assurances from China that it would not react in support of Pakistan, he stated and recommended waiting till snow blocked possible Chinese movement across the northern Himalayas. Such a move, he added, would also enable troop withdrawals from the Chinese front for deployment to East Pakistan as well as the West Pakistan front which too needed additional bolstering.

A compliant Gandhi reluctantly agreed, but in the interregnum, a whispering campaign was mounted by senior officials and politicians against Manekshaw, accusing him of vacillation and shoddy ‘general-ship’. Fully aware of the calumny unleashed against him, Manekshaw remained unruffled as he calmly set about preparing for combat. This hiatus, meanwhile, enabled Gandhi to secure the Friendship and Co-operation Treaty with the Soviet Union, thereby neutralising the possibility of any interference from either an antagonistic US or a belligerent China.

It also enabled the establishment of a formal Bangladesh government in exile in India and the arming and training of Mukti Bahini guerrilla fighters, jointly by the Research and Analysis Wing and the army’s Special Forces. Over the next few months, till war erupted, these militias successfully harassed and engaged the Pakistani Army, confining it to garrison towns far from the capital, Dacca (now Dhaka), rendering Manekshaw’s eventual task easier when war ultimately ensued.

And, when the Pakistani Air Force conducted a pre-emptive strike on Indian airfields in December 1971 from West Pakistan, Manekshaw unleashed his campaign. A firm believer in the chain of command, he delegated the battle planning and execution to his field commanders, using his clout with the political establishment in New Delhi to fulfil their financial and hardware requirements.

In reality, this overarching role rendered Manekshaw India’s first uncrowned Chief of Defence Staff, an appointment Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been unable to confirm nine months after General Bipin Rawat’s demise in December 2021.

Also read: The Longer the Modi Govt Delays Appointing a CDS, the More ‘Expendable’ the Post Becomes

Thereafter, a fortnight later, on December 16, 1971, the irreverently outspoken, jocular and fiercely moustachioed Parsi army chief, who was born and grew up in Amritsar, achieved what no other military in the world, including the US with all its wizardry had not earlier accomplished: the birth of a new nation, Bangladesh. India also captured 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war.

Almost 51 years, or two generations and a half later, this narrative continues to captivate veteran and serving officers in all three services in varying measures, epitomising for them the apogee of the military successfully asserting their status with the country’s formidable political and bureaucratic establishments.

But a cross-section of these officers, along with defence and security analysts, rue the reality that in the intervening period, the military hierarchy’s propensity to fearlessly express such operational objectivity had steadily degenerated, to the point of vanishing, replaced regrettably, by a services-politician nexus guaranteeing reciprocal benefit.

However, several of these officers, though in agreement with the latter sentiment, were unwilling to be quoted by name in expressing their varying degrees of disappointment with the dissipated moral courage amongst active servicemen in standing their corner on numerous service and operational issues, like the recent Agnipath/Agniveer scheme.

Also read: The Agnipath Scheme May Be Designed to Ring the Death Knell of Indian Democracy

“It’s fantastic to even think that what Manekshaw did over half a century ago in standing up to Mrs Gandhi is even remotely possible today,” said a grizzled three-star army officer. It simply isn’t.

However, former Indian Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Arun Prakash is one of the rare few to publicly concede the inability of the military’s higher ranks to convey the ‘unvarnished truth and unpleasant news’ to their superiors. Writing in the Indian Institute of Defence Studies Journal in 2013, he observed that ‘in (the respective) service headquarters, the (situational) comprehension levels were lower, and tolerance for bad news even less at the political and bureaucratic levels. Hence, it often required all of one’s resources of moral courage to place (service) matters in the correct perspective, he declared.

In his lengthy essay titled ‘Roots of moral decline in the armed forces’, Admiral Prakash said that due to the tangible erosion of values and frequent displays of venality, the armed forces were ‘rapidly slipping’ in their country’s estimation and for them to blame this decay on society and polity was ‘not acceptable’. It was also apparent, he added, that neither the defence ministry nor any other civilian authority either cared about the moral health of the military, or could do anything about it.

Hence, the onus for stemming the rot and attempting to reclaim the izzat (honour) of the armed forces lay squarely on the prevailing military leadership – in Delhi and in the respective command headquarters, with basic military training institutions becoming the foci of attention.

Unfortunately, few heeded Admiral Prakash’s forewarnings and admonitions, and little or nothing had altered since his frank assessments nearly a decade ago.

Instead, the Faustian bargain between soldiers and politicians had intensified in recent years. It is no secret in security and media circles that many senior service personnel were increasingly identifying themselves with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led administration, that in turn unashamedly sought to exploit military achievements for political gain.

A host of senior-serving and retired military officers privately acknowledged that since 2014, ‘political expediency’ had been factored into several of their tactical operational plans and wider strategic decisions. This symbiotic relationship has suited both parties, as ruling party politicians had successfully exploited what passed for tactical military gains to take on the election campaign trail, to project the BJPs robust handling of national security issues.

This is best illustrated by the army’s September 2016 ‘surgical strikes’ against militant launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the Indian Air Force’s reported bombing of an Islamic terrorist training centre at Balakot in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in February 2019.

Also read: The Surgical Strikes Videos Are Proof That Politics Is Fully in Command

Skillfully portraying both these ‘virile’ responses against a lesser enemy ensured the BJP a massive victory in the Uttar Pradesh state elections in early 2016, weeks after Prime Minister Modi’s ruinous demonetisation initiative. The latter airstrike proved even more electorally fortuitous: the BJP returned to power after the April 2019 general elections in even greater numbers than previously.

For the services, these events also proved fortuitous for the self-centred and pecuniary-minded soldiery which, in several instances, was rewarded either with promotions in service, or lucrative sinecures after retirement, or in some cases even both. “Military officers now continually have an eye to the main chance, pushing the government for employment after retirement, unlike previously when they superannuated gracefully, confident of their status in society,” said a one-star retired army officer.

Earlier, reminisced another former two-star army officer, some degree of dissidence was not discouraged within the respective services and promotions, the bane of all military men presently, were largely merit-based and shorn of ‘outside’-read political influences. Undeserving, or passed-over candidates rarely ever crossed their limits of incompetence and quietly faded away, rarely ever resorting to litigation to secure higher ranks.

But all that had changed.

Currently, civil courts and military tribunals – another avenue of employment for senior officers – were overloaded with promotion-related cases. This, in turn, was precipitated by relentless pressure on advancement up the greasy pyramid-like services edifice – determined in recent decades on decimal point weightages by computers – only prompting further pitiless and unseemly competition.

Admiral Prakash in his essay recommended a ‘major thrust to revive a sense of honour and pride in the profession of arms, by introducing self-monitoring and self-regulatory systems within the Services’. This endeavour, he suggested can only be initiated by the top military leadership to focus on the moral health of the Services, to create formal codes of conduct and above all, to set personal examples of a spartan, upright and soldierly way of life.

Perhaps, then, and only then, can we aim and hope for a redux of Field Marshal Manekshaw’s upright candour.