LONDON: The three-part structure of ‘Crafting a New Indian Art of War: For Future Challenges’ by Lt Col Gautam Das is a compendium of India’s warcraft that has impacted on strategy since 1947.
Lt Col Gautam Das’ “Crafting a New Indian Art of War: For Future Challenges” (Pentagon Press LLP: 2024) is a stimulating and coherent work compelling military professionals and the general reader to participate in the shaping of India’s army in the largest democracy, positioning itself for future challenges. The title’s composite parts are strung like many segments of armour to be worn. The function of the armour is to defend, protect, the body. By sartorial intervention the armour defines the intention of war to the opponent.
Das’ structural approach progresses from theory to practice investigating a construct of a “doctrine of war” for the future. In establishing the Indian socio-cultural context for strategic thought, I wish he included A.K. Ramanujan’s “Is there an Indian way of thinking?’ along with Nirad Chaudhuri’s Circe. It leads however to seminal questions partly answered in the book, leaving room for a sequel. What are the rules of responsibility and governance for officers, men and, I would add, women? How could this be effectively disseminated to operational and infrastructural services in combat? The real question that comes through: Is the Indian Army ready for a systemic culture change? Why is this important?
Das masterfully steers away from past British and Indian military historians who advocated a genre recognisable by citing a chronological amalgam of battles. The noble aim of all military histories is to broadcast the valour of the operational regiments involved in the front and embed the morale narrative as heritage. Late Field Marshall Sir Henry Chapple of the Gurkha Brigade made an apposite remark during Khadi Poppy Armistice Day speech at LSE in 2019 about histories written by the British and Europeans of the same battle; that the British often got there and wrote the narrative first—while the others were fighting it out and clearing the mess. The first narrative claims control of history even if inaccurate but offers room for critiques and diverse perspectives later. In “Indian Art of War” Das has efficiently signalled and steered away from Memoir, of campaigns, while he makes a strong note of leadership, citing works of Indian officers published from 1987-2014.
The premise of Das’ work emerged from Prof Gautam Sen’s observations and concern, that after 1947 there is no official document on national defence policy or National Security Strategy that has been produced without inputs “from the Indian intellectual community …or various stakeholders’”, but only “guidelines” from a bureaucracy. It is a necessary alert to India to formulate a strategy that integrates deterrence as part of its defence while safeguarding the world’s largest democracy.
The book’s three-part structure with an Appendix as a fourth part, is a compendium of India’s warcraft that has impacted on strategy since 1947. Both for the general reader and staff officer training it is a handy textbook to refer as a toolkit of regionally categorised regiments and design of India’s army from atomised unit to large scale operational and strategic functions. Just as the game of dice in the Mahabharata, India is not new to the conduct and principles of war, but Das familiarises it for the contemporary recruit. His strong recommendation in this doctrine is that India’s defence culture change must be “aggressive” in clarifying boundary by regaining or claiming territory. This can be enabled as the smallest unit of commander is trained rigorously to engage with context by analysing local intelligence from informants while communicating between Sub-sector and Sector Commanders to make the strike. Here, I read “aggressive” as extends its boundary to mean timely intervention. In practice he illustrates with case studies post mortems as lessons learned, of border conflicts from Kashmir, China, Pakistan (W1965, E1971), Sikkim, Sri Lanka providing evidence for why this doctrine of critical thinking could equip each officer with that sense of responsibility to be tested in training.
The impetus for Das’ craft and art of war is from the French coup d’oeil, “an instinctive feel of the developing battle” by the commander on the field; a skill. I’d extend the analogy to theatre, where art and craft is the territorialised space where demons and divinities come to play in conflict and represent the human condition with a myriad of unforeseen circumstances to test the rules of conduct and train mind and body in opening fields of emotional interiors and external geography to make the intuitive leap into the action. Timing is the conquest of absence by evoking motive to cue and establish presence of field. With equestrian championships and maritime sport, Das would be familiar with the martial art principles of Chau and Kalarippayattu. “Preparedness” is the requisite it calls for a paradigm shift in the culture of India’s Army.
Das as martial artist and deterrence theorist serving in the Indian Army (1968-1991) as an Infantry officer with the 11th Gurkha Rifles, along India’s “contested frontiers”, with an MA in Defence Studies from the University of Madras equips him with research and tools for enabling change.
History haunts us with Sir Cyril Radcliffe’s commission of partitioning India in 1947. The thickness of the grease pencil or China marker drawn on maps across the territories that formed the borders of India, the emergent Pakistan were fatal. The few mm thick pencil stub on the map created indistinct demarcations within 2-200 km on real ground, with living communities not knowing where to shelter across a familiar civilisation hastily carved overnight into two countries, causing chaos, strife and belligerence beheading neighbours. A conduct of war is also about saving lives where training and skill is a human imperative to lessen casualty.
Das is not recommending a US-style National Training Center like California’s Mojave desert hosting Fort Irwin to create an urban environment that stands for Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine with drone swarms, radar jamming, fake news and blood.
We need to participate in this dialectic of knowledge acquisition and dissemination as preparedness which impacts on all lives; defence personnel and the public in an emerging time of anthropoecology.
Dr Vayu Naidu is Professor of Practice at SOAS, University of London, and Royal Literary Fund Fellow writing Historical Fiction.