How Manmohan Singh deterred an aggressive China by raising an attack corps

Manmohan Singh came to power in 2004, carrying his credentials as an economist and an economic administrator. But his first crisis was not in the field of economy, nor at home―it was on the lawless sands of Mesopotamia, and it called for deft and delicate diplomacy.

Indeed, his predecessor A.B. Vajpayee had already made it clear that India wouldn’t commit troops to Iraq, a land that Americans had occupied searching for bombs, poison gas plants and war-germ labs. Not finding any, they hanged its ruler, Saddam Hussein, started issuing oil contracts, and were now facing flak from the world and fire from insurgents.

Manmohan had reiterated the Vajpayee line―no troops to Iraq, even to keep peace. That was characteristic of him―no overnight overturning of predecessors’ policies, no denigrating of his predecessors even if he thought they had been wrong, and never making surprise announcements (except once, which we will come to later). As if guided by a sense of gurutva, of not speaking ill of elders, he never said a word against his predecessors. Rather, he believed in building on the strengths of their policies, as he had done in the case of his economic reforms more than a decade earlier. Never denigrating the Nehruvian public sector model, he had built upon its strengths to initiate, build and groom a mature private sector economy in the 1990s.

The same was true of his foreign policy in the 2000s. Never finding fault with Nehruvian non-alignment, Indira’s Soviet leaning, Rajiv’s muscular militarism, Rao’s look-east, Gujral’s benign brotherliness to neighbours or Vajpayee’s atom-armed engagement of the west, he counted all those as blessings and would build upon the strengths of all.

But two months into the government, he was confronted with a ticklish hostage crisis―three Indian workers, hired by a US company in Kuwait, were abducted by Iraqi insurgents. His diplomats worked all ropes―diplomatic, political, commercial, religious, spooky and even sheer blackmail where required. Finally, his junior foreign minister, the low-profile E. Ahamed of the Muslim League, worked his Gulf Malayali business links and delivered the three workers alive and grinning.

Perhaps the crisis strengthened Manmohan’s resolve never to make harsh departures in his policies, nor to burn the bridges that his predecessors had built. Despite his initial scepticism about the benefits that would accrue from the possession of atomic arms, he quietly moved to modify Vajpayee’s militaristic nuclear policy into an energy policy, without sacrificing the big power gains accrued from the possession of the bomb. Thus, his surprise nuclear deal (the only surprise that he ever delivered during his 10-year rule) proved to be acceptable to the opposition BJP, most of his allies (except the left parties), the US who promised to supply uranium even to Tarapur which they had once refused, the Russians who had always backed India in all its military and technological adventures, the French who were keen on nuclear business, and even the uranium-selling Canada and Australia. He even risked his government over this, survived, and returned with a larger mandate.

To be fair, even at the height of the political diatribe over the nuclear deal, he never spoke an ill word about the left leaders. But he had made it clear to them―even at the height of their honeymoon―that he would brook no compromise over his strategic requirements even if it meant severing ties with the left. Thus when the Left Front government of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee threatened to block the entry of US Air Force pilots and fighters into Kalaikunda for an exercise with the Indian Air Force, he is said to have quietly threatened the government with dismissal. That was Manmohan―firm when it came to protecting national interests, but never so rigid about anything personal.

Anyway, the new energy diplomacy over nuclear status got India into the elite nuclear clubs membered by the big five and their cronies. With that India gained what Indira and Vajpayee had worked for―near-big power status. All the same, he was not willing to sacrifice India’s strategic autonomy that prime ministers from Nehru downwards had believed in. For instance, despite all the pressure from his nuclear benefactor George W. Bush, he was not willing to sever ties with the junta of Myanmar. Even when Bush, on a visit to India, mentioned the importance of “exporting” democracy to Myanmar, Manmohan’s reply was a studied silence.

Myanmar was one issue over which his close friend and fellow economist Amartya Sen had misgivings. Like Bush, Sen, too, said so in Manmohan’s presence, and the latter’s response this time, too, was an amused smile. Similarly, even buddy Bush couldn’t wean him off the strong military bonding India had enjoyed with the Russians, who had been giving him technology partnerships over globally denied cruise missiles.

With Pakistan, too, he picked up from where Vajpayee had left. Vajpayee’s last major diplomatic deal was his visit to Islamabad in January 2004―months before he was to demit office (though he did not know it)―where he had got president Pervez Musharraf to give it in writing that Pak-controlled territory wouldn’t be allowed to be used for launching terror against India. Indeed, the commando-general, or his ISI, was again playing military deception. They brought down the scale of violence in the valley, but pressure-cooker bombs and other contraptions began going off in India’s cities and towns―Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and so on. This strategy, of keeping the valley rather trouble-free and activating terror cells in the rest of India also gave a veneer of deniability to Pakistan.

Then came the Mumbai attack on India’s Constitution Day of 2008, where an ill-paid and unarmed police constable achieved a feat that even the toughest military commandos could not―he caught, in full public glare, a young Pakistani terrorist who had a name, an address and an undeniable identity of a Faridkot butcher, armed, alive and in the act!

The capture of Ajmal Kasab by Constable Tukaram Omble changed the discourse of India-Pakistan diplomacy. Manmohan’s crisis-management group pondered over sending troops guns blazing and fighters strewing bombs into Pakistan, but the military chiefs themselves are said to have advised against overt military action at the moment―never strike an enemy when he expects you to strike, they advised.

But it was not all forgotten or forgiven. While Manmohan’s diplomats went to town with the irrefutable evidence, his commandos effected at least four surgical strikes across the line of control, killing an unknown number of terrorists and terror cadets.

Meanwhile, as had been expected, the Chinese dragon was waking up. It had been biding its time, as Napoleon had warned Lord Amherst 200 years earlier from his exile in St Helena (“China is a sleeping giant, when she wakes she will shake the world”), focusing on modernising its technology, its society, its sciences, its industry and its military, and seeking to equal or excel the US as a world power. Having conducted the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China was ready to take on the world.

One of the first targets was Manmohan’s India. For two reasons―one, there had been the long-standing border dispute, unresolved but kept frozen through two political deals with Narasimha Rao in 1993 and 1996; two, Beijing was already miffed about Manmohan’s nuclear adventures and his bid to get India into the global big league.

Using an uprising in Tibet in 2008 as a ruse, China moved hundreds of armoured vehicles from Leshan in Sichuan and other places into Tibet. Most of the troops returned after shooting the rioters, but two brigades that were left behind were converted into mobile units that could be rapidly deployed on the Indian frontier. Soon, the People’s Liberation Army began building the capability to rail-move two rapid action divisions into Tibet.

Sensing trouble, the Manmohan government permitted the IAF to move three wings of its deep-strike Sukhoi-30MKIs closer to the northern frontier―the 15 wing to Bareilly, the 11 wing to Tezpur and the 14 wing to Chabua. That sent the right message to the Chinese―that their much-marvelled rail line, over which they could move huge divisions overnight, could be bombed out in treeless Tibet in no time.

Not to be outdone, the Chinese started building and upgrading their highways, mainly those connecting Tibetan towns with China’s military depots and stations. India responded in kind by getting the Border Roads Organisation to build or upgrade 3,175 km of frontier roads in 2009-10, another 2,433 km in 2010-11, and 2,245 km in 2011-12. Most of the key roads linking corps or division headquarters in Arunachal Pradesh were quickly double-laned and reinforced to take tanks and artillery. In short, Manmohan and his defence minister, the low-profile A.K. Antony, were racing with the Chinese road for road.

China’s next move was to upgrade old airfields and build new ones―about six were built in 2009-10―which could land troops and support fighter operations. India promptly replied by pulling out the Army’s entire Dimapur corps from counter-insurgency duties and deploying it on the China border. Next, the Rangia-based 2 Mountain Division was pulled out from the Tezpur corps and attached to the Dimapur corps. Next, two mountain divisions were raised anew and quietly given to the Dimapur corps. All the three pivot (defensive) corps in east―Dimapur, Tezpur and Siliguri―were given light 155mm guns that could be easily heli-lifted.

Strategic airlift capability was also enhanced several times by inducting C-130J Super Hercules and C-17 Globemaster aeroplanes that could land troops, tanks and guns at remote points on the frontier from any corner of India in no time. Even western observers were conceding that India’s strategic airlift capability was now far exceeding that of China. This would be proved on the ground years later in the post-Galwan crisis when India could get its troops and tools to the frontier faster than the Chinese could.

Meanwhile, as if to take care of any misadventure in Ladakh, untold batteries of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles were moved to the sector. And with the upgradation of the old landing grounds like Daulat Beg Oldi to take huge flight-landing operations in the Ladakh sector, the Chinese got the message that Manmohan meant business.

Next, India revealed its trump card, its Brahmastra. On July 17, 2013, Manmohan’s cabinet committee on security gave the green signal to raise an attack (strike) corps in the eastern sector, the first of its kind against the giant northern neighbour, at an expense of Rs64,000 crore. It would be pet-named Brahmastra Corps.

That signalled a radical change in India’s strategic doctrine against China. Till then, it had been assumed that Indian forces would only be able to defend territory, using its three pivot corps in case of a large-scale ground attack by China in the eastern sector. Now with the raising of an attack corps against China, over and above the three defending corps in the east, it was a signal that India could even be on the offensive if it wanted.

Is it any surprise that the Chinese haven’t attempted any adventures in the east till date?

THE WEEK and Manmohan Singh

THE WEEK had the privilege of chronicling Manmohan Singh’s journey on our covers several times. Here, we revisit some of the most captivating moments captured in our past issues.