Humble, honest and firm, the former Army Chief, General (retired) Ved Prakash Malik on why a dialogue between civilians, politicians, bureaucracy and army is the need of the hour...“We are a democracy. I would like more people to think of the army. The political sections, as well as the bureaucracy, are content if the public do not ask any questions. If you, as a journalist, raise questions then will people react. India pays handsomely for its Army—would you not like to know more about where it is headed; whether the currency is being converted into capabilities?” He sits opposite to me, benign, hands folded, soft spoken and keen to hear me out. He looks younger than his 70-and-an-odd years. There is a twinkling kindness in his eyes, which reminds me of my political science professor, who was so ‘sweet’ (for the lack of a better word) that we hung on to his every word. I am hanging on to this man’s every word now. Not because he is sweet, or that he demands my respect (both are true) but because he is an important man—perhaps the most important man in India when she was in throes of war between May and July 1999. If you suggest the same to General Ved Prakash Malik, the 19th Chief of the Army Staff, he would be mortified. The tags don’t sit well on him. He explains that the Kargil War, or any war for that matter, is fought by men in the trenches and on the battle-field. As a leader one is left ‘deeply honoured’ if one’s men trust you enough to hear your orders out. “I never fought the war. I was fortunate enough to have men who trusted my orders and followed them.” His logic is plain and direct—much like his speech. There are no verbal genuflections to the nation or national identity. There are no melodramatic speech about courage. There is only determination. This is the author behind Kargil: From Surprise to Victory. His book is an incisive narrative which reveals behind-the-scenes events that led to the Kargil War and its aftermath. How Pakistan Army personnel infiltrated Indian borders dressed as jehadis (a ruse that the General did not fall for because terrorists don’t fight to ‘maintain territory’) and how tactical surprise failed at a strategic level. The book also offers an insight into the Pakistani political leadership and just how out-of-sync it was with the planning of its military brass. As to why he chose to write the book, General Malik answers honestly, “Because everyone else was writing something about it. Not that I wish to take the credit away from journalists, but they were not in the war in the same way as a soldier is. So, I thought that our version needed to be heard as well. I felt that if I don’t explain how and why of the war, then it goes into oblivion as all the other Indian wars have.” “I waited for five years and then I wrote the book. I took my time with it. Just writing without giving your own examples is not fair. I wanted to give it some credibility. I remember when I gave the complete manuscript to Harper Collins I added an apology. I told them that I had written it in fauji language. Thankfully, they thought it was all right,” he says with a smile. “I may be polite, I may write simply, but I won’t hesitate to call a spade, a spade. A thing I will continue to carry on, apart from writing, is addressing citizens about India’s security and strategic issues. It is my contribution to my country.” From the first day that he assumed office as the Chief of Army Staff and Services, General Malik has been consistent in his worries and wishes. Years after the war, he hopes that one day the country will be able to strike a balance between resources and capabilities. During Kargil War, while a media briefing was on, a journalist asked General Malik how the army was going to fight in the face of its weapons and equipment shortages. General Malik’s reply was: “We shall fight with whatever we have.” That became a prominent point, and a personnel from the Ministry of Defence complained to the Prime Minister about the statement. At that point General Malik believed that any attempt to cover up the true state of affairs would have conveyed an impression to the army rank and file that their Chief was indulging in ‘double talk’. “And if that would have happened, they would have lost confidence in me.” And it was important that people, his people, never lost faith. “The Indian soldier is a remarkable human being: spiritually evolved, mentally stoic and sharp, physically hardy and skilled. And his institution remains proud of its traditions of selflessness, devotion to duty, sacrifice and valour,” General Malik had said to the media in a press release. “When the Prime Minister asked a wounded Garhwali soldier in a Srinagar hospital what can he do for him, the response was ‘I want to rejoin my battalion as soon as possible’ and ‘please get us lighter weapons and equipment so that we can climb mountains faster’. Even during the war an Indian soldier’s spirit was strong. We were confident that we would throw the intruders out from Kargil and Siachen sectors. If the situation demanded, we could also attack across the border.” That was why General Malik chose to quit Delhi, and go to Kargil and Siachen fronts to address troops regularly, interacting with them and seeing their commitment and motivation. “I would get re-assured, when I was with them,” he says. A further illumination of the lessons learnt from Kargil war were penned by the General himself for Bharat Rakshak Monitor’s Volume 4(6)(1). He underlined the lessons in 10 lines.
“India spends a lot of money on its defence. This year there was hue and cry over a slash in the Defence Budget. At the end of the day, if you look at the allotted sum (`2-lakh-crore), it is not a small sum. The problem is not the money. But the fact that the money invested has to be converted into capabilities. Unfortunately, I feel we are not building the kind of capabilities with the money that we are spending,” he says. It is the same statement that this Army Chief made when he addressed the media after the war, “A proper balance must exist between resources and capabilities. No single arm can dictate operational capability or influence the operational environment, be it mobility, firepower, surveillance or intelligence, these assets require to be judiciously distributed on the battlefield. Only then can battles be fought as one of the combined arms.” “The strength of a military lies in its human resource, weapons and equipment, and its morale.” But that leads to the question as to why, a nation thus evolved, finds it problematic to strike this ‘balance’. “There are many reasons for it. The first is based on a lack of knowledge—about the military—among our decision-makers, whether be it politicians or the bureaucrats. The second reason is not keeping the military in the loop in the defence planning. As far as the military itself is concerned, after 42 years of service as a military officer, I have a lot of faith in its human resources; in our soldiers. It is in our policies where we often fault; our policies require major changes to get us the capabilities that are required to face challenges we are up against and those that might trouble us in the future. How can India become a major power when she imports 70 per cent of her weapons from foreign shores. We haven’t build the defence industry required for a military of our size. India is a large country and it faces several internal and external challenges. We share unresolved borders with China and Pakistan. Then, there are the smaller nations and the vast Indian Ocean. We have to plan in terms of decades ahead. We are the fourth or third-largest military in the world, yet we are the seventh largest importer of arms. Defence planning is not being understood by our decision-makers who don’t wear the uniform. Reforms are possible through political intervention, and may be, even legislative action.”
“Both China and India are nuclear powers. Being a nuclear power brings down the threshold of the kind of war that we are talking of now. This is not 1962 anymore. The scenario has changed completely. We have an unresolved border with China and it stakes its claim—which it repeats every two years. The claims also create strategic problems in terms of China’s partnership with Pakistan, and in our partnerships with smaller nations around us. They are the major weapons supplier to Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The national power gap between China and India, it seems to be growing in China’s favour. There is a partnership on the economic front, and if it benefits both countries, it will be a good thing. But the strategic problem; I feel that we need to be adequately prepared for that. We must be prepared for some kind of show-down. On the Pakistan front, I am not overtly concerned. We are strong enough to take on Pakistan. During Kargil, we were not allowed to enter the Pakistan territory from anywhere. Despite that we were able to push their soldiers out.” According to General Malik, nuclearisation of China, India and Pakistan has created a ‘stability-instability paradox’ situation in Asia. The military balance is stable at the level of all-out nuclear and conventional war; it has become less stable at lower levels of violence. The likelihood of a full-scale war stands reduced, while the possibility of proxy war through terrorists or limited war and skirmishes with regular troops along disputed borders appears to have increased. Earlier, he says, proxy wars and terrorism, which could lead to a limited or full-scale conventional war, were not viewed as part of the spectrum of conflict. The Kargil War and the Indo-Pak military standoff in 2001-2002 have shown that proxy wars and terrorism must be included in the ‘spectrum of conflict’ between two nations. There are two strategic conditions which can spark off and then escalate a military conflict between India and its neighbours.(2) “First, the border disputes where a serious skirmish can lead to a conventional military conflict, and second, intense proxy war that may lead to a conventional war. When a conventional war does break out in such conditions between two nuclear nations, it is expected to be fought under a nuclear overhang. Some people call that a sub-conventional war or a limited conventional war. The Chinese call it ‘local border wars’. Such a conflict could also spread out in time, in what could possibly be termed as a war in ‘slow motion’. It will have to be conducted within the framework of carefully calibrated political goals and military moves that permit adequate control over escalation and disengagement.” One of the major influencing factor in these skirmishes would be the fact that all three nations are nuclear powers. “The demand for nuclear weapons has been there ever since 1979. But that was just a recommendation or demand—whatever you would like to call it. Perhaps procuring the weapon is the best way to prevent a nuclear war—a nuclear deterrence. Chiefs before me had asked for it particularly after China obtained a weapon in 1964 and then we heard reports of Pakistan being a few turns of the screw away from making a bomb in 1984. It came about in 1998 and it was a political decision and I was warned a few days before the decision. And I was satisfied with the decision.” “Unless the political leadership takes greater interest in this sphere and we make some structural changes in the armed forces. We have a greater, direct interaction between the political leadership and military. Its only in the times of crisis is there a direct contact between the military and the political leadership, otherwise the military is kept at an arm’s length through bureaucrats. So, there is a need for us to make some organisational changes so that there is much closer interaction and on all security matters the heads of the services need to be kept in the loop.”
PEACE; A WAY OF LIFE“If you think I am fit enough to be an instructor then I am fit enough to be a commanding officer,” he tells me laughing, when I inform General Malik that he reminds me of the professor. Are you not too mild to be an Army man? He is not offended by the naivete of the question. Instead, he explains that the military is one big family. That you have brothers-at-arms who are also your best friend and family during times of peace. Think school and college. Think of football games, some foolish rule breaking mischief done together, getting punished together, and assignments done together and the pat on the back that leaves you as much proud as it does your friends. Well, that is military for you. “At the time of crisis you have to lead from the front, you should be prepared to do what you expect people to do. Once your peers and subordinates know that you are one of those people, they trust you and your orders. In the army, the system of seniority—commanding officers—is important because they are the guides and mentors. They treat you like a younger brother, as do their wives—the seniors take care of you. “It is a well-knit family. The army’s about discipline, integrity and resolutions. It is not just about violence or war. In 1959, when I got my first commission, there was no major current strife—apart from a few pockets of violence in Nagaland. My men’s lives and mine revolved around exercises because one did not know about the Pakistan situation. It could escalate at any time. “In 1959, I was posted along the Amritsar border. Then in 1962 my unit was sent to Ladakh. We were deployed at several places but that was right after the fights were over. I didn’t see any bullets flying around me, but we were in a war-like situation, moving from a place to another, always on alert. We did see a lot of bodies. Ladakh in those days was climatic disaster and we lost a few good people to pulmonary edema. Not much was known of the condition and that turned out to be our biggest battle then till we knew more of the condition and then we started taking preventive measures. “A way of keeping sane in the military is to be clinical about guidelines and keep your faith in your people. And there by life revolves around camaraderie.” Not content to just rise through ranks, General Malik went through all the specialised courses that the military had to offer. “Fortunately I did well. I became instructors in various schools—at the staff college, infantry school, in the school of combat. One’s nomination in the courses depended on merit and merit alone. Some you have to depend on the exams. You have to be cut above others. In school I was a bad student in physics and in the NDA I was the weakest person in mathematics. Most people want to do well. Even youngsters today I see them so driven. My family’s expectations and the competitive spirit that the Indian Army instills were the driving forces behind my rise. Apart from that I never thought much about what was happening?”, he says. So was he never ambitious? “Why don’t you tell me what is your connotation of that word—what do you mean by that? At a certain level I do not want to look too far ahead. But I would look at the next rung that I had to climb, which kept me motivated. At the same time, I wished to stay true and clear to what I was doing then. Did I get into the Army to climb up? Yes. Did I get into the army to do only that—no!” Today, General Malik is settled in Panchkula near Chandigarh. Instead of ROUND enjoying a steady retirement, he keeps himself engaged spreading awareness and sharing his views on India’s national security challenges and international relations, both in India and abroad. He was a member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) for two years. And he has been an independent director on the board of some private sector companies and advisor to foundations and trusts. He has authored and edited defence-related books and has written articles for several dailies and magazines. He tried his hand at gardening but his wife allegedly beat him to it. “Now my role is of the bystander—I just sit and listen to her when she talks. She is the pro. Thanks to her I know names of all plants and flowers that grow in the garden.” Like father, like son, General Malik’s son is now a Colonel in the Army and is married to an Army doctor. “Out of the blue he came to me and informed me that he was going to be enlisted. He had completed his BCom and was nowhere near to an army career. Then one day he informed me that he was going to be married and that too, to an army doctor. So, in lieu of the family tradition, he seems to have fitted right in.”