Why senior leaders fail field commanders and impose decisions devoid of ground reality

After the 1962 Sino-Indian war, Lt Gen Thorat, retired and settled in Maharashtra, was summoned by Prime Minister Nehru about a report placed before him. The war was over and Indian forces had suffered a debacle. Nehru was astonished to find a detailed assessment that Lt Gen Thorat had written about the Chinese threat much before the India-China conflict. In 1960, more than two years before Chinese troops attacked Indian forward posts on 20 October 1962, Lt Gen Thorat had warned about the Chinese threat and advised against having inadequate Indian preparation to counter it. “Why was the report not shown to me?” a baffled Nehru asked the general. Thorat told the prime minister that he should be asking his Defence Minister this question.

Lt Gen Thorat, then Eastern Army Commander, was tasked by General Thimayya to assess the situation and prepare a report on the threat from China. Thorat wrote “Previously, the only real threat against India which merited consideration was from Pakistan. To this now has been added the threat from China.” The report went in vain. Unlike pre-independence, British governments where a strategic template guided by ambitions of military expansion fostered a culture of leadership where key emphasis was laid on ground level threat assessments, India’s immediate post independent governments – having little understanding of wars and conflicts didn’t believe in military advice. In fact, the whimsical defence minister, VK Krishna Menon was led by his own beliefs and biases – which were far removed from the actual situation on ground. The defence minister’s conviction on a military aspect that China would never attack India was based on an assessment that jettisoned military advice.

An ostrich-like approach – led by the political class – would set into the culture of decision-making in the Indian Army in the 1950s and early 1960s. One of the disreputable examples of clueless leadership is manifest in this anecdote recounted in Kunal Verma’s book ‘The War That Wasn’t’. Lt General Brij Mohan ‘Bijji’ Kaul – perhaps the most infamous and disastrous example of nepotism in post independence Indian Army was visiting the forward areas. He was speaking to troops, outlining a plan of attack on the Thagla ridge across Nam Ka Chu – which was a ridiculous plan by itself. After his talk, he asked if anyone had a question regarding the plan. There were senior officers, JCOs and jawans in the audience. One man stood up. He was Subedar Dashrath Singh – who had fought in the World War and was known to be pretty candid. “This is the first time I’ve seen a battle being planned where we are sitting in the valley while the enemy is holding heights above us,” Verma’s book quotes the subedar as saying. The subedar had asked a simple but tough question to which Kaul had no answer. The General flew into a rage and threatened dire consequences for the subedar.

Eleven days later, the Chinese attacked – killing most of the men that had listened to Kaul and his orders. A brave and resilient Subedar Dashrath fought gamely and survived after having had an entire AK-47 magazine emptied into his stomach. What of Lt General Kaul? He had left the battlefield earlier and then reported sick – leaving a warfighting army in the lurch.

To be fair, Lt Gen Kaul had once proposed to withdraw troops from Nam Ka Chu. But, in a meeting the defence minister VK Krishna Menon, and then army chief, General Pran Thapar had advised the prime minister against doing so. Once again, leaders far removed from the battle scene and with little experience of the area disdainfully trashed the ability of leaders on ground. The culture would become the bane of leadership, paralysing tactical situations in India’s military history – barring the times where exceptional leaders such as Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, Generals Sagat, Harbaksh, Hanut, Umrao Singh, and later General Sundarji led. Fortunately, after the blundering military leadership of 1962, India found military leaders who were bold, decisive, innovative and fearless.

The first indications of changing leadership would be the appointment of Sam Manekshaw as Corps commander of 4 Corps in Tezpur, Assam. He declared upon arrival, “Gentlemen, I have arrived and there will be no withdrawal without written orders and these orders shall never be issued.” This was in obvious reference to the infamous withdrawal of forces that Indian army generals resorted to during the course of the short war even after having been assured by ground commanders that they could hold defences and fight. It was a war led by a few generals without a fight in them. One example was when Captain Haripal Kaushik – Olympic hockey star and gallant company commander – chose to fight on at Bum La Pass, the higher headquarters instructed him to withdraw from a strong position to Sela Pass where a historic disaster awaited a withdrawing army.

In 1965, Lt General Sagat Singh was faced with the same conundrum when China pressurized India during the India-Pakistan war. The dilemma: stick to the status quo and obey uninformed instructions to withdraw or exercise the other option: take a bold call, thwart pressure, occupy a key forward post. The latter also meant possible failure. He chose the latter – and the Chinese were thwarted in occupying Nathu La. He would cannily avoid phone calls from his boss in order to ensure that the decision was his own – he was clear and unambiguous that a commander on ground was the commander of the destiny of his troops. In the 1971 India-Pakistan war, India hadn’t planned to capture Dhaka but Lt General Sagat Singh – commanding his corps as a wartime general – used unconventional means to do so. Initially, it appeared he was against the plans of his superiors, but history would prove his decisions right.

Two decades later, the Indian Army chief General Sundarji would once again establish the importance of muscular decision-making based on ground information rather than calls made from oblivious quarters – such as in the 1962 war.

After the 1962 war, the Indian army stayed south of Namka Chu. However, in the 1980s, an occasional team from the Intelligence Bureau would visit Sumdorung Chu, a few kilometres east of the site of the first clash of 1962 between India and China. They discovered an incursion of Chinese soldiers into Indian territory. A standoff ensued. General Sundarji held firm and airlifted a brigade into Zemithang, Arunachal Pradesh, leaving the Chinese quivering with his audacity. When prime minister Rajiv Gandhi learnt of the developments at the border at the Navy Day reception, a bureaucrat told Sundarji that the prime minister wasn’t too happy with the Chief’s aggression at the border. In Delhi, it was feared that the standoff might result in a clash. Sundarji, on the other hand, understood the local equation and used the ground to dominate the Chinese. He told the ministry that the prime minister needed better advice.

Many years have passed since, and the ghosts of 1962 have been largely exorcised. However, the repugnant culture of bypassing on-ground opinions and pressuring field commanders raises its ugly head once in a while, with disastrous results. In Galwan, 2020, when local Indian army commanders, including Colonel Santhosh Babu were negotiating with their Chinese counterparts about withdrawing the latter’s tents, sources say there was intense pressure on both Babu and the local brigade commander to hasten the eviction of the Chinese, without taking into account the local interaction between the two sides, own resources, preparation and evaluation of possible outcomes. The fact that the situation went terribly out of hand led to no one owning the unintended disaster of an inept decision. The fact that no senior army commander was censured for the events of 15/16 June is a travesty.

Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once famously remarked: A yes man is a dangerous man. He may rise high but can never make a leader. He will be used by his superiors, disliked by his colleagues and despised by his subordinates. The failure of a leader to stand by one’s decision is a weakness, just as the inability to comprehend and value on-ground decisions is a recipe for disaster. As a professional army, we have come a long way from the debacle of 1962, but to continue the traditions of sound leadership would require us to consistently reiterate the value of a moral compass, identify pitfalls of genuflection, acknowledge failures as learning and recognise true, dynamic leadership – however much we might disagree with the latter.

The writer is the author of ‘Watershed 1967: India’s Forgotten Victory over China’. His fortnightly column for FirstPost — ‘Beyond The Lines’ — covers military history, strategic issues, international affairs and policy-business challenges. Views expressed are personal. Tweets @iProbal

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