DeansMusings

The movie `Border' brought the 1971 India-Pakistan war – more specifically the Battle of Longewala, into popular imagination. While movies, particularly those by Bollywood which have traditionally taken liberties with historical accuracy, are allowed some license in portraying events, I think the reality of the Battle of Longewala brings out more of the ethos of the Indian army than the movie shows.  Nor is the revisionist claim that there was no real ground battle and the IAF did everything, correct.  There is also a larger strategic picture that is missed when talking of the heroic stand of 120 men at Longewala. What the battle achieved strategically has been little understood. Information on the battle, of the kind that will interest a serious student of military history is scarce. After trawling through them, this piece attempts to show what really happened, why the reality was more impressive than the movie and how it affected the larger picture.     What...

The 1947-48 India-Pak war, or the first Kashmir war, was the longest India-Pakistan war. It is also the least studied. Having read several accounts from both sides, I believe our (India’s) view of the war emphasises some remarkable achievements that prevented the loss of Kashmir and key towns in it. For example the airlift that saved Srinagar (and Kashmir), along with the breaking of the siege of Poonch and Leh. While it is right to celebrate our achievements and the bravery of the soldiers of both the India army and state forces, we also need to understand where things went wrong – I believe they did, at the level of political objectives and planning. Those lessons may be more valuable for us.  As someone with an amateur interest in geopolitics and military history, I believe there were larger lessons of this conflict and the mistakes made – some of which were repeated in India’s later wars.  Before commenting on mistakes and lessons to be learnt, a summary of what went ...

 I decided to write this after seeing a flood of articles, videos and social media discussion on Operation Sindhoor. A lot of it either focussed on the wrong subject – possible Indian aircraft losses, or does not put the operation in context, or speculates on why we agreed to a ceasefire – with the underlying assumption that Pakistan, or at least its air force, could have been finished off if the conflict had continued. Operation Sindhoor has to be evaluated in terms of its context, what its objectives were, the extent to which they were achieved and what our alternatives were at each stage of the conflict.   Background : In 1991, at the time India started economic reform and Pakistan chose an Islamist path, Pakistan’s GDP was 27% of India’s. At the time of the Kargil war in 1999, it was 20.7% of India. In 2025, Pakistan’s economy is projected to be just 9% of India’s. At current rates of growth, in 2031, Pakistan’s GDP will be 7% of India’s. In other words, India will sta...