Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Great Game Folio: Chinese Submarines

Source:
http://www.msn.com/en-in/news/national/the-great-game-folio-chinese-submarines/ar-AAcirzN
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-great-game-folio-chinese-submarines/

   The Great Game Folio: Chinese Submarines
                                           By
                                 C. Raja Mohan

Reports that the docking of a Chinese submarine at Karachi last month has surprised New Delhi are distressing. One would have thought Delhi would have anticipated the development after it sighted Chinese submarines in Sri Lanka’s waters last year. Despite the growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean in China’s maritime strategy, Delhi’s defence bureaucracy seems to continue to wring its hands rather than act.

The Chinese navy first showed its flag in the Indian Ocean nearly three decades ago, when it began to make ship visits to Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Since then, the frequency and intensity of Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean has grown. The Chinese navy’s continuous anti-piracy operations in the Arabian Sea since the end of 2008 have showcased Beijing’s growing naval capabilities as well as the political will to operate in waters far from its shores. Defending China’s growing overseas interests has become a major priority for the PLA.

China has also begun to debate the challenges of acquiring military and naval bases in other countries, especially in the Indian Ocean. As part of its “going out” strategy, the PLA navy has begun to build strategic partnerships in the Indian Ocean, cultivate access arrangements with critically located countries, export ships and submarines, and intensify its defence diplomacy in the littoral.

Alarmists, Apologists

The idea of a Chinese network of naval facilities and bases in the Indian Ocean, or a “string of pearls”, is often invoked by those in Delhi who fear Beijing’s hostile intentions. Others taking a more benign view of China’s policies ridicule the idea.

Ignoring the alarmists and apologists, Delhi must take a more realistic view of China’s long-term role in the Indian Ocean. China has ambitions to become a great maritime power. It is building the capabilities and devising policies to become one. A rising China is bound to establish a sustainable naval presence in the Indian Ocean. The question is not whether, but when and how.

There is nothing illegal about China’s aspirations. Beijing is following the footsteps of all previous great powers — Portugal, the Netherlands, France, Britain and the US — that established a naval presence in the Indian Ocean over the last five centuries. One factor, however, constrains Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean. It is the tyranny of geography. Long distances from China’s eastern seaboard make an effective presence in the Indian Ocean difficult for China without strong local partners. Although China is exploring special maritime relationships with many nations across the Indian Ocean, Pakistan remains the most likely place where its navy may drop anchor for the long term.

RECOMMENDED: Pakistan bristles at India's 1965 war 'commemorative carnival'

The stable all-weather partnership built up over the last many decades, Pakistan’s critical location in the Arabian Sea next to the Gulf, and Islamabad’s growing economic reliance on China, appear to have set the stage for an expansive naval partnership.

Delhi’s Ambivalence

India paid a high price for failing to anticipate the Sino-Pak nuclear nexus in the 1970s and 1980s. It is erring again by neglecting the potential for a maritime alliance between China and Pakistan that could severely constrain India’s freedom of action in the Indian Ocean.

© Provided by Indian Express A submarine that Pakistan bought from China. (AP photo)

The problem is not China’s naval ambition, but the Indian Ministry of Defence’s reluctance to craft a vigorous response.

For his part, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has underlined the importance of working with other powers in strengthening India’s critical role in the Indian Ocean. But the defence ministry seems unable or unwilling to translate that vision into policy. ( Accumulation of BABU Pumpkins in MOD )

Consider, for example, its hesitation to hold trilateral and quadrilateral naval exercises in the Indian Ocean with its maritime partners — the US, Japan and Australia. While Beijing pays no heed to India’s concerns in pursuing its maritime interests, the MoD cites Chinese sensitivities to limit India’s naval engagement with America and Japan.

( Is MOD FOREIGN MINISTRY ANNEX)

One would think diplomacy is the MEA’s business and that the MoD’s is to strengthen Delhi’s naval partnerships, probe China’s maritime vulnerabilities and build on India’s geographic advantages in the littoral.

The NDA may have replaced the UPA in South Block, but strategic paralysis — the legacy of A.K. Antony’s eight long years as defence minister — seems to endure.

The writer is a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a contributing editor for ‘The Indian Express’.

VIDEO: Chinese submarine sails through Indian waters on its way to Pakistan

False Equivalency in the “Indo-Pakistan” Dispute

Source:
http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/false-equivalency-in-the-indo-pakistan-dispute/?singlepage=1

False Equivalency in the “Indo-Pakistan” Dispute

By

C. Christine Fair

June 16, 2015 · in Commentary

In the wake of India’s hot pursuit of militants into Myanmar, Pakistan has raised numerous alarms about Indian aggression. It has issued various warnings that no such Indian incursion into Pakistan will be tolerated. As often happens in such circumstances, the international media has raised the tocsin of the potential for yet another “Indo-Pakistan” clash.

Unfortunately, much of this coverage of the so-called India-Pakistan conflict is deeply problematic in that writers, perhaps with good intentions, seek to impose a false equivalence on both nations’ conduct, giving the impression that India and Pakistan contribute equally to the fraught situation that currently exists.

This is dangerously untrue and feeds into a policy-process that has failed to come to terms with the most serious problem in South Asia: Pakistan. Such coverage also rewards Pakistan for its malfeasance by attributing blame to India in equal share and thus legitimizing Pakistan’s ill-found grievances. The only parties who benefit from such an understanding of the “Indo-Pakistan” dispute are the Pakistan military and its terrorist proxies. One such article was published by the Washington Post on June 11 by Tim Craig and Annie Gowen. In this essay, I seek to provide the necessary historical and empirical background that is required to make sense of the current situation. In doing so I directly challenge such writers as Craig and Gowen, among others, to devote more time to understanding the conflict dynamics before they inadvertently obfuscate the situation more than they illuminate it.

Pakistan’s Tired Kashmir Claims

As the article notes, the origins of the India-Pakistan dispute date back to 1947, when the two countries were tweezed out from the detritus of the British Raj. Pakistan’s founders argued that Muslims of South Asia could never be safe and secure under a Hindu majority in a unified India and thus required a separate state after the British departed. This was the crux of the so-called Two Nation Theory, which held that Muslims and Hindus are equal nations despite the fact that Muslims were far fewer in number. The Two Nation Theory was deeply problematic from beginning. First, Muslims had lived under Hindu dominion in the past with no significant diminution of their basic freedoms. Second, as independence loomed, many of the Muslims in what became West Pakistan did not want to join Pakistan in the first place. Third, during and after Partition, about one third of South Asia’s Muslims opted to remain in India rather than join Pakistan. Fourth, the 1971 secession of East Pakistan based upon ethno-nationalist mobilization against West Pakistani oppression further undermined the notion that South Asian Muslim identity was a sufficient basis for nationhood. The Two Nation Theory has remained the motivation for Pakistan’s claims upon Kashmir, without which Pakistan believes Partition can never be a complete process and the Two Nation Theory remains a dream deferred.

Partition was conducted on the basis of geographical contiguity and Hindu-Muslim demographics. Three so-called Princely States — Hyderabad, Junagarh, and Kashmir — did not cast their lot with either of the new nations even though hundreds of other such states had done so. The Muslim sovereign of Hyderabad, a large swathe of territory deep within India, governed a mostly Hindu population. He preferred to remain independent of either dominion. After a prolonged skirmish with the sovereign’s own militia and their supporters, India forcibly annexed Hyderabad. Junagarh, a Hindu majority state also deep within Indian territory, was governed by a Muslim who signed an instrument of accession to Pakistan. Pakistan initially refused to accept it because it shared no border with Junagarh. In the end, Pakistan accepted the instrument, likely in hopes of using it as a bargaining chip for the prize: Kashmir. Kashmir’s sovereign was a Hindu who presided over a Muslim majority population. While Kashmir was the only Muslim-majority state in the Raj, the polity was diverse and included Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Muslim communities various sects of Sunnis and Shia. Kashmir’s sovereign also sought independence. He signed a stand-still agreement with Pakistan to stave off military action while he dithered in casting his lot with either India or Pakistan.

Despite the standstill agreement, Pakistani militias from the tribal areas and what was then the North West Frontier Province mobilized to invade Kashmir in an effort to seize it for Pakistan. Although Pakistan is wont to insist that this was an uncoordinated assault without state support, Shuja Nawaz (a brother of a former Pakistani army chief) has mobilized materials from the Pakistan Army’s archives to rubbish this claim. His work shows the extensive national and provincial support these marauders enjoyed. As the “tribal raiders” made their way to Srinagar, where Kashmir’s sovereign was located, he requested India’s assistance in fending off the Pakistani invasion. India agreed to send in troops provided that Kashmir accede to India. The sovereign signed the instrument of accession and India commenced the airlift of troops. India’s logic was that it could not dispatch troops unless it was to defend its sovereign territory. (As Whitehead explains, there is some question about when the signed instrument reached New Delhi. Pakistan for its part sometimes raises the canard that there was no instrument at all, citing the fact that the instrument cannot be located.) Thus, India has a legal instrument of accession to the entirety of Kashmir. No amount of Pakistani protests nor revisionism can change this simple historical fact.

This invasion, began by Pakistan, precipitated the first war between India and Pakistan. At the war’s end, Pakistan had about one third of the territory and India held the remainder. India took the matter to the United Nations, hoping to get Pakistan declared as the aggressor. The United Nations undertook various efforts to resolve the affair. One of these efforts resulted in the UN Security Council Resolution 47 of 1948. This resolution called for a plebiscite to be held in Kashmir to discern the will of the Kashmiris, a point that Pakistanis raise ceaselessly. Unfortunately, few Pakistanis or even journalists covering this region have bothered reading the text of the resolution. Even a cursory read demonstrates that the contemporary coverage of this dispute is factually impoverished.

This often-cited, but rarely consulted document, lays out two conditions that must be satisfied sequentially before the plebiscite was to be held.
First, the government of Pakistan was enjoined:

To secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purpose of fighting, and to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State.

Second, when a UN commission was satisfied that “that the tribesmen are withdrawing and that arrangements for the cessation of the fighting have become effective,” India was to “put into operation in consultation with the Commission a plan for with-drawing their own forces from Jammu and Kashmir and reducing them progressively to the minimum strength required for the support of the civil power in the maintenance of law and order.”

Third, once these two sequential conditions were met, this plebiscite would be conducted.

Pakistan never met the first condition articulated in the resolution. Indeed, from 1947 onward, Pakistan sustained low-level sabotage and terrorism activities in Kashmir. Pakistan started two more wars with India over Kashmir — one in 1965 and a second in 1999. Simply put: Pakistan’s claims that India flagrantly disregards this resolution are grossly misleading.

The extent to which Pakistan goes to depict this conflict in explicitly fraudulent terms is evidenced by its own exposition of the Kashmir conflict and of the plebiscite’s language that is available on the website for Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. Not only does Pakistan’s official narrative make no mention of the conditions detailed in the plebiscite, the history it provides clashes violently with the scholarly historical account of the conflict and with various documents available at the United Nations’ own websites and those of the U.S. government. For example, it insists that it does not aid and abet the various terrorist groups fighting there. This is a canard that simply cannot be entertained credibly.

Under the security of its expanding nuclear umbrella, Pakistan has sustained a lethal proxy war over Kashmir since 1989. Kashmiris launched an indigenous insurrection that year in response to Indian malfeasance in managing Kashmiri aspirations, including massive electoral fraud. Pakistan quickly mobilized battle-hardened militants who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan to Kashmir, where they quickly worked to eliminate indigenous Kashmiri fighters who wanted independence.

Since then Pakistan has used Deobandi and Salafi fighters who are indifferent to Kashmir’s traditional Sufi moorings and who use violence in Kashmir and the rest of India to coerce India to make territorial concessions.

The Importance of Naming Victims and Perpetrators

There is nothing equivalent about the actions of India and Pakistan in this dispute. Pakistan’s role in supporting terror in India is well-documented. Numerous groups have been identified by the United Nations Security Council, by the U.S. Department of State as well as the European Union. Despite Pakistan’s fondness for citing the sanctity of a bastardized account of Security Council resolutions pertaining to the plebiscite, it has outright disregarded the various UN designations of key terrorist groups such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa (previously known as Lashkar-e-Taiba) and its key leaders who freely roam about Pakistan and engage in public demonstrations on any number of issues.

As Craig and Gowen note, Pakistan claims that India supports a range of insurgent and terrorist groups operating in Pakistan. In the past, there was speculation about Indian support to Baloch and Sindhi nationalists who have sought independence from Pakistan. Hard evidence for Indian support for these militants remains elusive. However, the best scholarly assessment is that any Indian involvement in these activities cannot compare to the scope, scale or duration of Pakistan’s support of non-state actors in India. Pakistan also alleges that India supports the various terrorists operating under the banner of the Pakistani Taliban. Unfortunately, Craig and Gowen failed to note that, unlike Pakistani sustained support for terrorism in India (and Afghanistan) for which there is Himalayan mounds of evidence including that which has been gathered from U.S. intelligence sources, Pakistan has provided no support for its varied claims. Unlike India, which has captured or killed numerous Pakistanis engaging in terrorism in India, Pakistan has caught no such Indian infiltrators. Instead Pakistan is wont to assert that some of its terrorists are not circumcised with the intention of intimating that they are Hindu.

It is a well-established fact however that the Mehsuds (a tribe in Pakistan’s tribal areas) do not circumcise and the ranks of the Pakistani Taliban are festooned with Mehsuds.

Not only is the characterization of India and Pakistan as being equally culpable empirically incorrect, it contributes to the underlying problem: Pakistani behavior. After all, why does Pakistan do what it does? It seeks to continue focusing international attention upon Kashmir in hopes of sustaining legitimacy for its ill-founded claims to the territory. The position staked out by Craig and Gowen not only misleads the Washington Post’s readership, it also rewards Pakistan for its various criminal enterprises.

The Most Recent Turn of Events

Pakistan has been able to get away with relying upon Islamist militants to prosecute its policies with respect to India with impunity due to its nuclear weapons. (It should be noted that Pakistan has also supported terrorists and insurgents that are not Islamist. From the early 1980s to mid-1990s, it supported Sikh terrorists in the Punjab and it has had a long history of supporting ethno-nationalist militants in India’s north east.)

However, Pakistan believes that its nuclear arsenal — inclusive of tactical nuclear weapons — makes any Indian punitive action too risky because of the potential for escalation. Pakistan also uses its nuclear weapons to coerce the United States to intervene in any crisis principally by putting pressure on India not to respond to any Pakistani-based terrorist outrage. This effectively shields Pakistan from the consequences of its own actions.

Curiously, all of the factors that allow Pakistan to use non-state actors to coerce India with impunity in principle should allow India to do the same.

However, India has been remarkably constrained in the face of decades of Pakistani provocation. Incidentally, few media accounts of this dispute acknowledge this, including the piece by Craig and Gowen. After all, India’s own nuclear arsenal, larger conventional capabilities, large economy, and more reputable standing in the comity of nations arguably position it to reciprocate in similar ways. Pakistan has no paucity of ethnic, sectarian, and socio-economic fissures that could be exploited by Indian covert operations and funds. Moreover, India enjoys much better ties with all of Pakistan’s neighbors with the exception of China and could easily be more aggressive in using these neighboring states to return the favors that Pakistan has bestowed upon India since 1947. Yet it hasn’t.

The reasons for this restraint are numerous. Perhaps the most important explanation stems from India’s governance under the Congress Party. The Congress Party in recent decades preferred economic growth as a means of bolstering India’s national power and international standing. The Congress Party avoided confrontation with Pakistan despite such outrages as the Pakistan-backed, multi-day assault on Mumbai in 2008 by Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Congress Party seemed to think its citizens could and indeed should endure such Pakistani-backed terrorism rather than confront it.

The current government under the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems less insouciant about Pakistan’s behavior and seems more inclined to find ways of punishing Pakistan for such outrages and deterring it in the future. The country’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, is a decorated veteran of India’s intelligence community. This government, under Narendra Modi, responded very aggressively to shelling across the international border in Kashmir in the fall of 2014. (This was also likely motivated by the elections in Kashmir held at the end of 2014). Moreover, Doval very provocatively warned the Pakistanis that if they conduct another attack like Mumbai, Pakistan will lose Balochistan.

Last week, in response to militants killing 20 security personnel in Manipur in India’s northeast, India engaged in hot pursuit into Myanmar. It wasn’t the first time it did so; but this time, India was very public about it. Indian officials gave various press statements that implied that the operation should be read as message to all terrorists and the states that harbor them that India will pursue threats across its borders if need be.

Pakistan responded with alarm. After all, only one of India’s neighbors deliberately harbors such terrorists who operate in India. Pakistan’s leadership responded with nuclear saber rattling. As predicted, the regional and international media began raising the flag of alarm. Equally predictably, the United States asked both India and Pakistan to take steps to defuse the situation.

How to Prevent Future Conflict?

If the United States wants to prevent future conflict, it should consider a very different approach to the South Asia region.

Admittedly, the problem with U.S. policy in South Asia is that it still is overly reliant upon Pakistan for its operations in Afghanistan and in support operations against al Qaeda and their allies in Pakistan’s tribal areas. This policy has been flawed from first principles because Pakistan has consistently undermined U.S. objectives in Afghanistan. The United States found itself in the peculiar position of being logistically dependent upon Pakistan to fight the war in Afghanistan, while Pakistan was working to undermine U.S. efforts there by continually supporting the Taliban. However, as the United States draws down its footprint in Afghanistan, it needs to radically rethink its policies towards South Asia. Below I identify several steps that the United States can consider as it re-optimizes its dependence upon Pakistan to sustain operations in Afghanistan.

First, rather than adopting milquetoast statements that imply that both states are equal contributors to the problems, it should insist that Pakistan is the primary problem. Accordingly Washington should be adamant that Pakistan must cease and desist its support for all terrorists operating in and from its territory, many of whom actually have killed thousands of Americans and allied civilians and soldiers in Afghanistan. This demand is enshrined in numerous laws as a conditionality that must be satisfied before various kinds of aid can be given to Pakistan. The United States has largely waived these conditionalities, which further signals to Pakistan that it can do whatever it wants without consequence.

Second, the United States must remove itself from Pakistan’s coercion loop by declaring that it will not step into the conflict should a Pakistani terrorist group attack India in the future. Whether or not India responds with force should be India’s choice, not that of the United States.

Third, the United States should reconsider how it discusses the issue of Kashmir. An unimpassioned reading of the history clearly suggests that Pakistan has no equities in this dispute.

India has an instrument of accession.

This does not mean that India’s behavior in Kashmir has been acceptable. It has not been. (Pakistan’s own record in the part of Kashmir it governs has also sustained severe criticism by human rights organizations.) However, the United States can best help the situation by viewing it as an internal issue and encouraging India to resolve it. Not only does Pakistan have no legal claim to the territory, its use of brutal terrorists to kill innocent civilians as well as military personnel deprive it of any moral claim. To this end, the United States should signal that it views the Line of Control, which divides the territory between parts administered by India and Pakistan, as an international border rather than a disputed boundary. It should begin working with the United Nations to make this a reality.

The best way of dealing with the various security challenges in South Asia is by being forthright in identifying them correctly and then adopting appropriate policy responses. Little good can come from denying reality in preference to more convenient narratives that hold India and Pakistan equally responsible for the dangerous situation that obtains in the region.

C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is also a visiting fellow at the Gateway House in Mumbai, India. She is the author of Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War and co-editor of Pakistan’s Enduring Challenges.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

OROP : THE IDEA OF OROP

                       THE IDEA OF OROP

   I BELIEVE, IN THE 'SATTA BAZZAR' OF BOMBAY HEAVY BETTING IS ON WHETHER 'OROP' WILL BE IMPLEMENTED OR NOT BY HON' FINANCE MINISTER.

HON' MINISTER IS BEING CONSTRAINED BY BABUs NOT TO CONSIDER THE 'IDEA OF OROP' EVEN ON THEIR DEAD BODIES

               THE REASON FOR PANIC IS.............

DAUD IBRAHIM HAS PLEDGED Rs 8296/- Crore AGAINST THE TOTAL REQUREMENT OF Rs 8297/- Crore PROVIDED   Sh JAITLEY PROVIDES Rs 'ONE CRORE'

BABUs ARE INSISTING THAT JAITLEY SHOULD NEGOTIATE AN AFFORDABLE AMOUNT LESSER THAN Rs ONE CRORE.

IT IS BELIEVED MATTER HAS BEEN REFFERED TO THE PMO FOR ARBITRATION

O R O P :Important Caution to Military Veterans & Service HQ handling OROP with Babus

BABUS HAVE SUCEEDED IN FOOLING THE FM ABOUT OROP
and
IN TURN THE PRIME MINISTER

REPORT MY SIGNAL

28 Jun 2015

Dear Veterans,

Jai Hind.

The email below, from Lt Gen SK Bahri, will shock all the veterans.

I personally feel that the RM is giving Defence Services and the ESM maximum possible support; the obstructions are the Babus, The FM and miss guided by them The PM.

We should now think in terms of bringing the PM online by repeatedly reminding him of his pre-election and post election promises; he should sort out the FM and his Babus.

Please do not forget – one of the Defence Secretaries, more than a decade ago, had said “OROP over my dead body”. All Babus now think on the same line.

Babus will stoop down to any extent to fool misguide the FM and PM about OROP.

In service of Indian Armed Forces Veterans & Families

Chander Kamboj

==========================================

From: Satish Kumar Bahri [mailto:skbahri1@yahoo.com]
Sent: 28 June 2015 12:45
To: Manohar Parrikar
Cc: COAS Sectt; CNS; CAS; Mahalingam Venkataraman; Gen VK Singh
Subject: Fw: Important Caution to Military Veterans and Service HQ handling OROP with Government

Dear Mr Defence Minister,

Reference the trailing mail from Brig Mahalingam.

A few days ago a team, including me, from IESM met the FM due to the kind courtesy of Gen VK Singh. Col Rajyavardhan Rathore was also present. During this meeting the FM came up with the suggestion of a base pension for each rank and an additional amount for each year of service, in lieu of OROP. We asked him as to how and who will fix the base pensions, to which he said that the 7th CPC could do it. He also offered that he would accept a retd Lt Gen as a member in the CPC. We insisted that this should not be done, as firstly, pensions as per the Koshyari Committee be paid from 1/4/14 till the award of 7th CPC is announced. Thereafter, the salaries of the serving personnel may be fixed by the 7th CPC and consequently our pensions will follow as per rules. We would however, like that the 7th CPC restores the differential of pension as existing prior to 3rd CPC, which affects the largest number of ESM. The increase of civilian pensions without a corresponding increase in our pensions was patently unjustified and against all norms of justice.

Secondly, as the FM had offered to include an officer from the Services, I feel we should push for it even though it is late. The advantage would be that we could be warned by him of any underhand deals being done by the bureaucrats, to our disadvantage. We should also insist that we be not classified as shudras and be equated with the Class A services. You being the appointed guardian of the Defence Forces have a duty towards them, which you have been executing very well so far. So please continue.

Thirdly, the demand of CAPF is a red herring intended to muddy the waters, so that the government can put hurdles in resolving the issue of OROP.

With warm regards.

Satish Bahri

Lt Gen SK Bahri PVSM
A3/502 World Spa East
Sector 30/41
Gurgaon 122001
Tele 0124 4143180/181
Mob +91 981000 2800

==============================================

Important Caution to Military Veterans
&
Service HQ handling OROP with Babus

Dear All,

"Military Pension" is a concept devised by the bureaucracy with some intent. The concept must be viewed with caution by the leaders of the Veteran’s community presently engaged with the Government on the issue of OROP.

As it seems, the nomenclature of the proposal suggests that the Government is likely to lay down a Pension Band like the present Pay Band. The point that is likely to be missed out is, equating the pension of the Veterans of the past with the pensions of soldiers retiring from service today with equivalent rank and service. As a result the Pension Band is likely to be much below the Pension applicable to personnel of the same rank and length of service retiring today. The implication would be, even if the pension band, say for a Brigadier retiring with 25 years of service is Rs 2000 per month with an increase of Rs 25 for every 6 months increase in service, it would fit in with the definition of OROP. In other words, the Pension Bands may be delinked from Last Pay Drawn.

The bureaucracy may be banking on cashing on this interpretation to circumvent OROP. Once announced the Government will go whole hog to mislead the general public to claim that the Veteran’s demands have been fully met as the pension from then on would be same for persons of the same rank with same service irrespective of their date of retirement. .

It appears to me that instigated claims of CAPFs demanding OROP, the JCOs and OR getting less increase due to OROP etc. are being generated to create friction amongst ranks and files of the army as well as the Veteran’s community. It would also enable the Government to create a belief amongst the civil population that OROP indeed is a complicated process. On this very pretext of allegedly being able to examine the issue of OROP comprehensively to include CAPF and other Police Forces, the issue may be palmed off to 7^th CPC. The larger aims and approach of the Government (read bureaucracy) explains the delay in implementing OROP.

If you study this carefully, it may be a sinister plan something similar to the 3^rd CPC. This will reduce the pension of the present retirees delinked from their Last Pay Drawn. In the long run, the pensions of the Defence Community will be hit very hard.

The purpose of writing this mail is to caution those handling the issue including the Service HQ of the likely pit falls. Even after the Government makes the announcements, the experts from the Veteran’s community and the Service Headquarters need to study the letter carefully before claiming success or expressing happiness over the issue.

We should remember how the Rank Pay was skirted even after the Government letter was issued.

Incidentally, along with OROP, we need to insist that a rep from each service and the Veteran’s community need to be included in the committee working out the details of the scheme. It is time the Service HQ and the Veteran’s community also insists that similar representation is accepted in the 7th CPC before it is too late to mend things.

I sincerely hope and pray that my assessment is totally wrong and misconceived. I would be happy if the Government proves me wrong by implementing OROP, the way it was conceived and perceived.

Regards,

Brigadier V Mahalingam (Retired)

Did India Stumble A Bit In Its Myanmar Policy?

SOURCE:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/25062015-did-india-stumble-a-bit-in-its-myanmar-policy-analysis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29

The roundtable should covert be overt?

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR6TqKGRCr0 )

Did India Stumble A Bit In Its Myanmar Policy?

By

Bhaskar Roy*

Analysis

Burma - India relations

Burma - India relations

June 25, 2015

On June 9 early morning, a crack team of Indian army commandos, backed by air support, attacked two camps of NSCN (Khaplang) across the Manipur border with Myanmar, inflicting some serious damage. The team returned without any loss on its side. This operation demonstrated that the Indian armed forces have developed the capacity for hot pursuit of militants and terrorists, and also can conduct precise short duration limited strikes, achieve its objectives and withdraw.

The planning and execution was done in a very short time.
The Indian army has developed high capability in jungle warfare and mountain warfare. It is not the first time the army conducted such raids on militants. Para commandos, of Establishment – 22, a special and secretive detatchment, conducted such silent warfare during their 1971 war with Pakistan in erstwhile East Pakistan (Bangladesh). When these commandos move not a twig can be heard breaking under their feet.

Deep strike capabilities of Indian intelligence agencies were dismantled by Indian governments since the early 1990s. The grounds were that to establish trust with Pakistan and build relations, these capabilities were to be junked demonstratively.

It takes decades to build these strengths, but a single order from the prime minister to destroy them. At the same time leadership of intelligence organizations have to be chosen according to a proven track record of years of service, and not through political connections and group networking. There are no clear signs that these defaults are being addressed with the urgency they demand.

Immature statements by new-Kid-on-the-block politicians, thumping their chests without understanding the larger picture in strategic dimensions can be really pathetic, creating serious embarrassment for all concerned. Such faux bravado can also damage future operations.

Extending the anti-NSCN (Khaplang) operation as a veiled warning to Pakistan by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, and addition of some more spice by Minister of Defence Manohar Parrikar were thoughtless and not of any substance. Every theatre of operation has its own peculiarities, and its own strength and weakness. No two theatres are identical or even comparable.
While the Indian army was brief in its comments and did not reveal any operational details, some of the government leaders went on boasting, a characteristic that has become a habit.

They revealed that the commandos had gone inside Myanmar territory with the cooperation of the Naypidaw government. Such revelations embarrassed President Thein Sein. According to the Myanmar Constitution no foreign army is allowed inside their territory. This means that the president willfully disregarded the Constitution, a grave charge. Indian officials had to rush to Naypidaw to retrieve the situation as far as possible.

The Constitutional provision is not ideal. Myanmar is placed between two large countries, India and China. While Indian insurgents of the Northeast take refuge in Myanmar’s hills and jungles, sometimes in collaboration with sections of the Myanmarese army, the Tatmadaw, the Chinese have equal if not greater interests, in Myanmar.

NSCN(K) chief, Khaplang, is a Myanmarese Naga and a Myanmarese citizen. Khaplang broke away from the NSCN (I/M), the Indian Naga separatist group after the latter entered into talks with the Indian government. This further complicated the official position of the Naypidaw government. The Tatmadaw is not in full control of its ethnic minorities and the areas they occupy. Although ceasefire agreements have been arrived at with most of them, some of them are still in conflict and enjoy covert support from China. Beijing uses them to keep the Naypidaw government under pressure.

The ongoing conflict between the Myanmarese government and the Khokang rebels in North East Myanmar, bordering China’s Yunan province is an illustrative example. The Khokangs are ethnic Chinese. During this conflict Myanmarese aircraft accidentally dropped bombs on Chinese territory. The Chinese not only severely reprimanded the Myanmarese government but also conducted a live fire military exercise just across the Myanmar border, warning of consequences if Myanmar was unable to come to peace with the Khokangs.

The earlier military government of Myanmar, isolated by the international community, including partially by India, had been pushed into China’s arms, becoming totally dependent on China. China not only had economic interest in Myanmar (gas, oil, minerals), but also viewed its strategic importance as a way to enter the Indian Ocean. This they have partially realized by constructing oil and gas pipelines from Myanmar’s coast to Yunan. They want more.

The Myanmarese military government under Gen. Than Shwe took a strategic decision around 1998 to open better relations with India. Myanmarese diplomats were directed to lead this initiative. Than Shwe felt India would be a safe bet to balance China. Western countries were still not acceptable.

Lt. Gen. Khin Nyut, a half-Chinese and leader of Myanmarese military intelligence, was gradually removed and jailed on corruption charges. Khin Nyut was strongly pro-Chinese and led the military group that was won over by China. He pushed the road-cum-river route from Yunan to the coast to carry Chinese exports and imports without Myanmarese customs checks. Following Khin Nyut’s ouster the government cancelled this project.

During Khin Nyut’s power run, Chinese arms and equipment had almost unhindered passage through to Indian insurgent/separatist groups. In one incident, a large consignment of arms and communication equipment was interdicted in Myanmar. Khin Nyut stonewalled the details from India.

After the arrest and removal of Khin Nyut, major Chinese arms transfer to Indian insurgent groups shifted to the sea route. The 2004 arms haul from the Chittagong port of Bangladesh revealed this conspiracy. Ten truck loads of arms including rocket launchers were found.

Investigations revealed that these arms and ammunition had come from a Chinese port. The recipients were ULFA, NSCN (I/M) and others. ULFA Commander-In Chief Paresh Barua was in Chittagong to receive the consignment. The transfers were facilitated by the then Bangladesh government ruled by the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami combination (2001-2006).

The Myanmar government understands that it has to live with China in peace, yet it is determined to shake off China’s domination. Two major Chinese investment projects, a hydropower unit of which China will be the beneficiary and a copper mining project, the product of which will mainly go to China, remain suspended despite mounting pressure form Beijing. Naypidaw is yet to give clearance to the Myanmar section of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) road. Thein Sein does not want the Chinese crawling all over his country, stealing its natural resources and destroying its natural environment.

China recently succeeded in establishing a channel with the NLD leadership. Aung San Suu Kyi was accorded the reception usually reserved for heads of state during her recent visit to China. She met all the important leaders from President Xi Jinping downwards. The message given by Xi was clear. He hoped Suu Kyi would protect Chinese investments in Myanmar.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s China visit at this time was not expected though the Chinese were trying to get her to visit somehow. They succeeded. Suu Kyi also played her political card. The Chinese see that the NLD will do well in the November election and even if it is in opposition, it will have a powerful role in government. The Chinese will be playing the NLD, and the NLD may be willing to play. The Chinese are apprensive that Thein Sein is increasingly playing the west against China.
India must be careful not to fall between the emerging power centers in Myanmar. Disclosing Thein Sein’s cooperation to hit the Indian insurgents inside Myanmar may force Thein Sein to withhold such support to India.

Thein Sein has little love for the Indian insurgents who could help Myanmar’s ethnic opposition, who have been fighting the government for years, some of them with help from China.
It is well known that China has contact with the Indian insurgents. It is quite possible that they are forming a united front if not already done so, with the Indian insurgents. With the Bangladesh route for arms supply blocked now, the Myanmar route will be used more extensively.

India will have to plan more astutely and its motor-mouth political leaders need to be shut down. India also need not talk about its muscularity to its smaller neighbours. This can be exploited by anti-India groups.

*The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchohart@yahoo.com