In the span of just ten years India waged three conventional conflicts against peer competitors with radically divergent results. During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, India was humiliated by China in a short conflict that saw the Chinese occupy substantial Indian territory. Three years later, during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, India was able to reach a stalemate, successfully defending Kashmir but proving unable to defeat Pakistan on the plains of Punjab. Lastly, during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, India achieved a stunning success, decisively defeating Pakistani forces in East Pakistan in just thirteen days. The roots of these three divergent outcomes can be traced to the varied condition of Indian civil-military relations and its impact on pre-war defense planning, wartime operations, and war termination.

The 1962 War

The outbreak of war between the People’s Republic of China and India in the fall of 1962 followed years of simmering territorial disputes in the poorly demarcated border areas. Years of negotiations with the Chinese communists failed to bear fruit.[1] Cognizant of the local superiority of the People’s Liberation Army in the border areas, the Indian army did not plan on halting a Chinese invasion at the border.[2] Instead, the Indian army would confront deeper Chinese attacks through a defense in-depth.[3] However, the Indian military was not prepared to deal with Chinese incursions that occupied smaller slices of Indian-claimed territory.[4] As Srinath Raghavan argues, “the question of preparing to counter threats across a spectrum was overlooked; the strategic problem of dealing with territorial incursions was blithely evaded. The Chiefs evidently sought to wage the kind of war with which they were most comfortable.”[5] Frequent Chinese encroachments, not unlike the salami slicing strategies used by the Chinese today, were politically unacceptable to the Indians. However, the military leadership offered no alternatives to their existing plan of defense in depth to confront this new Chinese strategy.[6] Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Defense Minister V.K. Krishna Menon stepped in to fill this strategic void by instructing the military to establish a series of posts and begin patrolling as forward as possible.[7] The military leadership halfheartedly began implementing Nehru’s aptly named forward policy. However, the army failed to concentrate sufficient reserve forces in the sector, contravening Nehru’s original plan.[8] When war broke out in the fall of 1962, the People’s Liberation Army quickly overwhelmed isolated Indian outposts before thrusting into India up to Chinese claim lines.

The popular Indian perception was that civilian meddling was the root cause of India’s defeat.

For India, the war was an unmitigated disaster. In under a month, its forces were defeated by the Chinese, and its political leadership was forced to accept the new territorial status quo. A post-war operation review committee headed by Lieutenant General Henderson-Brooks and Brigadier General Prem Bhagat drafted a scathing report of India’s conduct. The narrative of the report was “an admonitory tale of meddlesome civilians, a timorous military, and an avoidable catastrophe.”[9] The forward policy has been held up as the classic Indian case study revealing the dangers of civilian interference in military matters. The popular Indian perception was that civilian meddling was the root cause of India’s defeat. However, this conclusion is based on an uncritical reading of history. Nehru’s much castigated pre-war forward policy emerged from the failure of India’s military leadership to address Chinese salami slicing tactics on the border. Furthermore, as Srinath Raghavan argues, “during the four weeks of hostilities, the civilian leadership did not in any manner constrain the conduct of military operations” and repeatedly demurred to the military with respect to operational matters.[10] The root cause of India’s was not civilian interference, but its numerical inferiority in the border areas and lackluster execution of the forward policy.

The perception that civilian interference led to India’s defeat meant other wartime failings were ignored. Indian defense journals in the years following the war are largely bereft of critical analysis of the conflict and India’s military failings.[11] The debacle of 1962 cast a long shadow and became the lens through which later conflicts were seen. The persistent focus on the role of civilian interference in the defeat led the civilian leadership to believe that the military must be given a long leash.[12] This contributed to the gradual institutionalization of civilian non-involvement in defense matters post-1962.[13] This abstention would have consequences.

The 1965 War

Just three years after India’s debacle in the Himalayas, Pakistani forces launched a surprise conventional attack into India. This followed a months-long unconventional campaign in Jammu and Kashmir that aimed to undermine Indian control of the territory. Cognizant of the post-1962 narrative, which lay most of the blame at the feet of politicians, India’s civilian leadership during the 1965 conflict was consistently and purposefully uninvolved in the conduct of the war. This pattern began when the Chief of the Indian Army sought permission to attack bases in Pakistan used to launch unconventional attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.[14] Prime Minister Shastri granted this broad and vague request, which could have led to full scale war with Pakistan, without inquiring further into the matter.[15] In effect, Shastri was ceding civilian control of the decision to wage war to the military.

Following the outbreak of conventional conflict months later, this pattern persisted. The emergency committee of the cabinet did not meet once to discuss operational matters during the war.[16] On the whole, the civilian leadership failed to “engage their military advisers in any discussion of strategy-of how military means were expected to translate into the desired political ends.”[17] This lack of direction was detrimental to the war effort. The official Indian history of the war laments that “instead of delivering a large number of inconsequential jabs, the Indian army could perhaps have gone for a few selected, powerful thrusts…Faulty strategy led to stalemate, with no strategic decisions whatsoever.”[18] This pattern continued to the end of the war. General Jayanto Chaudhuri, Chief of the Indian army, argued in favor of a ceasefire, citing heavy Indian tank losses coupled with a severe shortage of ammunition. Cognizant of the pitfalls of being perceived to overrule military advice, Shastri accepted General Chaudhuri’s recommendation and agreed to a ceasefire.[19] A more critical examination of Chaudhuri’s argument would have revealed that the Indian army had not suffered grievous tank losses and had expended only 14% of its frontline ammunition.[20] India thus decided to stop fighting on account of faulty military advice.

Despite clear failings of the Indian military outlined previously, the relative success in 1965 confirmed for many the importance of leaving war to the generals.

During the 1965 war, the norms and narratives of civil-military relations that emerged post-1962 consistently harmed the Indian war effort and contributed to the inconclusive result. Yet the relative success of the Indian military in 1965, compared to the debacle of 1962, meant that valuable lessons were once again ignored. As Stephen Rosen argues, “in most of the accounts of the 1965 war, Indian writers say that by then the army had reformed, that the territorial gains made by the army in 1965 ‘wiped out the shame’ of the territorial losses in 1962, that the war had a profoundly unifying effect on India…”[21] Despite clear failings of the Indian military outlined previously, the relative success in 1965 confirmed for many the importance of leaving war to the generals.

The 1971 War

Six year later, persistent social inequalities and political repression in East Pakistan spawned a Bengali insurgent movement fighting for autonomy. The occupation of East Pakistan by West Pakistani forces ultimately led to Indian intervention on behalf of the insurgents in the winter of 1971. As the Bengali insurgency slowly expanded, the Indian military and intelligence services increased their support for the movement.[22] However, it soon became clear that the insurgency alone was insufficient to overthrow West Pakistani forces occupying East Pakistan and an Indian conventional campaign was needed. When India formally intervened in December 1971, in just 13 days it achieved a decisive and unexpected victory: capturing Dhaka and severing the Pakistani state in half. The 1971 war quickly emerged as the poster child for the benefits of civilian non-involvement in military affairs with many observers applauding the civilian leadership for giving the military a free hand.[23] The 1971 conflict cemented the narrative that civilian meddling caused defeat and civilian abstention led to victory.

Later, when Dhaka finally fell to Indian forces, the Prime Minister called an early end to the war rather than engage in a costly invasion of West Pakistan as some had hoped.

Yet a closer and more critical examination of the 1971 conflict shows that this was far from the case. The Indian civilian leadership was consistently involved in the military planning and diplomacy that led to India’s penultimate success. Prime Minister Gandhi was involved in planning and overseeing the war from the beginning. She put a political appointee, D.P. Phar, in charge of coordinating and aligning the various political and military efforts in India.[24] This coordination by someone with direct access to the prime minister had been noticeably absent in the two prior wars, resulting in a disorganized and often incoherent strategy failing to align ends, ways, and means. Prime Minister Gandhi also secured international support from the Soviet Union, as well as promises of non-involvement from western countries and China.[25] This allowed the Indian military to concentrate solely on the Pakistani threat. Without the support of the Soviet Union, and Indian diplomatic maneuvering to preclude Chinese intervention on behalf of Pakistan, it is doubtful that the Indian military could have even launched a military intervention. The Prime Minister also firmly controlled the escalation of India’s involvement in East Pakistan from support of insurgent operations to direct intervention. She first authorized direct artillery support for the insurgents, later expanding Indian involvement to conventional Indian military operations in East Pakistan.[26] Later, when Dhaka finally fell to Indian forces, the Prime Minister called an early end to the war rather than engage in a costly invasion of West Pakistan as some had hoped.[27] As a result, India was able to lock in its gains and preserve its new hard-fought image as liberators.

With respect to civil-military relations, the 1971 conflict is antithetical to the Indian experience in 1965. Rather than abdicate responsibility and oversight, the civilian leadership was heavily involved in pre-war planning, wartime operations, and war termination. But while civilians actively shaped the course of the 1971 war, their involvement was circumscribed by the long shadow of 1962 and the narrative that emerged from that war. Civilians preferred to work behind the scenes, careful to not publicly contradict the military line or be seen to intervene in operational matters.[28] This off-stage approach has led to the persistence of the narrative that the Indian military is successful only when civilians abstain from meddling in military matters. However, as a closer examination of the 1971 war demonstrates, civilian involvement was a critical enabler of Indian military success in 1971.

Conclusion

Sir Michael Howard’s argument that the roots of victory and defeat must be sought far from the battlefield rings true in the case of India’s wars in the 20th century. The state of Indian civil-military relations and the nature of the interaction between its civilian and military leadership help explain India’s darkest defeats and shining successes. Equally important is the popular civil-military relations narrative that shapes the manner and scope of civilian involvement. The roots of Indian civilian non-involvement in 1965 and backstage involvement in 1971 are found in the long shadow cast by the 1962 debacle. Those who seek to understand regional security dynamics should further examine Indian civil-military relations and the role of popular narratives in shaping civilian involvement in military affairs.

Luke Encarnation is a graduate student and research assistant at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He earned a MA (Hons.) in International Relations and Modern History from the University of St Andrews. The views expressed are the author’s alone.

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Header Image: Indian soldiers on patrol, 1962 (Unknown).

Notes:

[1] Neville Maxwell, India’s China War, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), 169-170.

[2] Steven Hoffmann, India and the China Crisis, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990), 101.

[3] Ibid

[4] Srinath Raghavan, “Civil-Military Relations in India: The China Crisis and After,” The Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 32, No. 1, (2009), 154.

[5] Ibid, 156.

[6] Ibid, 160.

[7] Ibid, 158.

[8] Hoffman, India and the China Crisis, 113.

[9] Raghavan, Civil-Military Relations, 166.

[10] Ibid, 165.

[11] Stephen P. Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies, (Cornell, Cornell University Press, 1996), 234.

[12] Raghavan, Civil-Military Relations, 167.

[13] Ibid, 151.

[14] Ibid,169.

[15] Ibid

[16] P.V.R. Rao, India’s Defence Policy and Organisations since Independence (New Delhi: United Services Institute 1977), 19-21.

[17] Raghavan, Civil Military Relations in India, 169.

[18] B.C. Chakravorty, The History of the Indo-Pak War, 1965 (Delhi: History Division, Ministry of Defense, Government of India, 1992), 228.

[19] Raghavan, Civil Military Relations in India, 171-172.

[20] Chakravorty, The History of the Indo-Pak War, 427.

[21] Rosen, Societies and Military Power, 244.

[22] Sumit Ganguly, The Origins of War in South Asia: Indo-Pakistan Conflicts Since 1947 2nd eds., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 103-104.

[23] Anit Mukherjee, The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Military in India, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 74.

[24] Srinath Raghavan, 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2013), 216.

[25] Ibid, 230.

[26] Ibid, 232.

[27] Ibid, 262.

[28] Mukherjee, Absent Dialogue, 74.