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Ranjit Singh Kapany

India’s Two-and-a-Half Front War

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, a sudden shift in the balance of the world order towards the south and far east Asia has been observed, primarily due to the aggressiveness of the Chinese in the Indian subcontinent and the South-China Sea. On one hand, a cartel of Communist China and Pakistan has been destabilising the entire geopolitical region through expansionism and terrorism respectively, on the other hand, India has ensured that its territorial and political sovereignty remains intact and that the hegemony of Communist China is countered by pursuing a modernised form of its foreign policy through the formation of new geopolitical alliances. These collective efforts of India as well as various first-world nations have led to the strengthening of new and historical strategic partnerships such as Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), AUKUS, Five Eyes Pact etc. The coming years will see such conflicts and partnerships at an even greater scale and this will form the fundamental basis of the ongoing modern 21st-century cold war and could even decide which faction will emerge victorious to form a part of the new world order.

In an interview with ANI in 2017, CDS Gen Bipin Rawat, the then chief of Army staff, said that India was ready for a two-and-a-half front war. The term two and a half was explained by Gen Rawat as the threats imposed collectively by the Chinese aggression in the East, Pakistani cross-border terrorism from the west and the internal conflicts decaying the country from within. The integration of theatre commands, emphasis on drone technology and strengthening of information warfare are some of the outcomes of Gen Rawat’s bold vision to which the entire country shall remain indebted forever.

With the establishment of the People’s republic of China and its subsequent invasion of Tibet in 1949, strategists and analysts were prudent enough to realise that the most hostile region after Europe in the coming days of the Cold War is going to be the Indo- Pacific. While a dedicated western theatre command has been constituted by the PLA for disputes pertaining to the Indian subcontinent, the eastern sector of mainland China has even more sophisticated military and technological establishments with the maximum concentration of troops, primarily to deal with the disputes pertaining to the south and east China sea. The Chinese often use a vague, absurd and distorted version of history to claim their rights over a certain territory and to justify their incursions into other nations. The most prominent version is that of the Nine dash line theory wherein the Chinese using the context of the Han Dynasty of the 2nd century AD claim to have ‘historic rights’ over various strategic islands in the south China sea.

Hypothetically speaking, if India was to resort to such tactics then the example of the Chola dynasty of 3rd century BC which encompassed entire southeast Asia under the strong naval, economic and political leadership of Rajendra Chola 1, would act as a strong narrative for her.

Another unique way the Chinese tend to impact the world order is through information warfare, also known as psychological warfare. It is somewhat similar to Hitler’s propaganda war machine which he used extensively throughout world war 2 to ensure his dominance and superiority in Western Europe. In this, the Chinese tend to distort, bend and manipulate facts and happenings according to their agenda, and project them in front of the world in such a way that it serves to demoralize and debilitate the civilian population of the enemy nation. It serves as a strong propaganda tool for the Chinese which they often showcase through various media platforms such as the Global Times. Psychological warfare is a non-lethal attempt to capture hearts and minds which usually employs propaganda to impact the values, beliefs, emotions, reasoning, motives, or behaviour of its targets. Governments, political organizations, advocacy groups, and military personnel might be the targets of such propaganda campaigns. For example in the recent Galway valley clashes of 2020, the Chinese initially claimed to have only 4 casualties of the PLA, in contrast to the official American and Indian reports which claimed at least 40 Chinese casualties. Moreover, in a desperate move to prove their stand, the PLA also decided to auction stones from the Galway valley to its common citizens as a souvenir of this skirmish.

India has experienced one war and countless skirmishes with the Chinese PLA, ranging from 1967 tensions at Cho La and Nathu La to the 2017 Doklam crisis to as recent as the Galwan Valley Incident in 2020. China dominantly engages with India over the northern, middle and eastern portions of the 4,057 Km long line of actual control (LAC) in Ladakh, Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh respectively. This collectively constitutes India’s first war front which has kept the entire region in hostility for the past 70 years.

The foundational principle on which Pakistan came into existence and its sudden invasion of Kashmir in 1948 along with its unsuccessful attempts to capture the Lakshadweep islands, made it evident that the intentions and plans of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan were exactly the same as that of Zahir-Ud-Din Muhammad Babur’s, with which he came to India in the 16th century to establish Islamic radical supremacy. After engaging in 4 conventional wars with India, Pakistan realised that if it went into a head-on collision with India anymore, it will get annihilated. Hence in a change, Pakistan adopted a new policy of ‘making bleed through thousand cuts’ wherein it emphasised on two important strategies ie the K2 and radical terrorism. While the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) implemented the K2 strategy to radicalize Punjab and Kashmir, the Pakistani Army nurtured and trained various indigenous terror outfits to cause huge-scale massacres of innocent Indians. Terror attacks ranging from the 2001 parliament attacks to 26/11 to as recent as the Pulwama attacks of 2019 have led to a loss of uncountable civilian and Armed forces personnel lives in the course of the last 30 years.

There is a third war front which we Indians are often not able to recognize and ignore blatantly. This war is not fought at the borders by the soldiers but instead, the entire civil society fights it on a day to day basis. The internal conflicts, proxy wars, anti-national sentiments etc collectively constitute this war front.

Insurgencies like Khalistani uprisings and the Naxalite movement not only drain India’s resources but also cost the lives of its security forces personnel. The inability of society to recognize the anti-national sentiments disguised under the tags of liberalism and freedom of speech neutralizes the efforts of the government against these internal challenges.

The structural changes to the foreign policy by adopting methodical strategies such as ‘necklace of diamonds’ to counter the Chinese in the Indo-pacific along with the emphasis on Tibetology and mountain warfare are just the stepping stones to future historical reforms. Now the onus is on us, the common citizens of this nation to fulfil the assigned responsibilities and segregate right from wrong. Only then we will be able to protect our sovereignty and the 5000 years old civilisation which transformed the entire world.


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