Army must move towards high tech warfare

By Maj Gen V K Madhok (Retd)

Recently an ex Army Chief while commenting on US strategy and operations in Afghanistan has raised some issues concerning the use of Technology viz Man Power. There is a tendency in the Army in particular, to throw in the Infantry before using all those fools which Technology has made available to the military. The incursions in Kargil could have been avoided, had the Army made use of RPVs (remote piloted vehicles) helicopter borne observation posts, satellite reconnaissance alongwith IAF's reconnaissance capability and so on to keep a watch over those areas adjoining the LOC which had been left ‘'Naked" for the infiltrators to do as they pleased. Accordingly, it is time for the armed forces to move towards High Tech Warfare without delay.

High technology warfare involves the use of electronics (the ability to jam command and control structures, intercept communication networks, contaminate computers or take electronic counter measures), stealth (ability to fly combat aircraft into enemy territory without detection and in due course launch submarines and even missiles); satellite support (for surveillance, acquisition of real time information; provision of safe communications over long distances and navigation); missiles and PGMs (precision guided munitions or one hit capability weapons) with difterent types of warheads (high explosive, chemical or nuclear).

Besides, it requires self seeking and anti-missile capability, amphibious and rapid deployment capability by means of helicopters, aircraft , ships or landing craft, an all weather capability to fight by day or night (including night vision devices for ground troops as well as pilots), early warning systems, air refuelling capability, use of RPVs and so on. In a nutshell, high technology should provide two types of capability to our commanders and the armed forces. First, it should place all relevant data concerning enemy and own troops, which has been collected in the past, updated with gadgets and stored in computers, meshed with real-time information at the push of a button, on a TV screen, in front of military commanders from the brigade level upwards and their equivalents in the other services.

This will enable them to scrutinise their military missions, consider computer options detect grey areas, fill up the gaps with various gadgets and then take decisions to finalise their plans with speed.

Secondly, so far as the troops and units are concerned, they would need to be provided with enhanced mobility. That is, the ability to move over long distances with speed which is the soul of war. Further, technology should provide enhanced ability for survival to troops (with anti-chemical suits, gas masks and helmets), tanks, ships and aircraft, as well as cater for the best possible weapons. The advanced nations have already reached a stage today where they have the options to fight a conventional, a high technology conventional (as witnessed in the Gulf war and is being witnessed in Afghanistan) or a nuclear war. And within the next three to four years, they will be in a position to fight a battle in space with the use of anti-Satellite weapons.

Besides, it is in wartime that the soldier’s true innovative genius is awakened and therefore, they have been busy in improving upon their current technology and thinking of newer tools of war. But the options for a country like India and its neighbours are limited. They can at best, prepare to fight a high technology conventional war. However, India’s space programmes, the technological base nurtured in the last 54 years, the fact that the country has the third largest pool of scientists and technologists in the world and the successes achieved in various field give it a positive advantage of being in a position to plan and exploit the use of space support systems.

This, however, does not negate the necessity of having the ability to fight in a nuclear environment now that Pakistan has acquired the bomb and China is a major nuclear power. Therefore, the situation as one reads it today is that India is in a position to plan and achieve a high technology conventional warfare capability with indigenous efforts. But this can only be done if the right thrust is given to military technology and the armed forces can visualise possible future battlefield scenarios and articulate their combat philosophy. Pakistan on the other hand would try to do the same with foreign collaboration (particularly China), part self-effort and mostly imports. And China, India’s second opponent, would, however, continue to enlarge its existing capabilities. An important question is does the country have the necessary infrastructure and the will to achieve this.

The answer is loud and clear, it is the country with high technology which will not only be in a position to win wars but will be adequately prepared and equipped to prevent these. India is in a position to win wars, provided a high degree of coordination is brought about between the scientist, the soldier and civil entrepreneur. And this is a requirement which cannot be fulfilled without Defence Minister’s personal intervention.

The most important ingredient of India’s military philosophy would therefore have to be based on the principle that, in modern wars in which weapons change and improvements are made rapidly, an army which is 20-30 years behind an opponent will not have even the ghost of a chance to win. It should also now be based on the principle that war is primarily a matter of weapons, it is the machine power with technical manpower which wins wars. Indian armed forces should therefore aim at a shift to acquire the ability for high technology conventional warfare. The race for this should have already begun long ago in case it has not. The team-mates in this medley race are the scientists (both in R&D and the space organisation), the soldier end the defence industry (both public and private).

They have to compete against the bureaucratic machinery and its delays, the tendency to import readily available second generation mlitary technology, an inclination to let indigenisation rot instead of giving it a push and momentum.

One thing is certain, without the participants in the race getting together there is no hope of achieving the target of high technology conventional warfare capability.

Travails of displacement

By Asmita Kabra

Baijanti is busy in her sparsely furnished but neat pator or hut, preparing for the two-day journey back inside Kuno wildlife sanctuary, to their old home in the abandoned village of Meghpura. She, her husband Indal, and their five children are going by bullock cart for 15 days, during which they would round up and look after their cattle. All their cows, buffaloes and goats had been left inside the sanctuary when the family had shifted to their new home in the resettled village of Meghpura, near village Agraa outside the sanctuary. "We could not bring the animals with us, because there was no guarantee of getting two square meals even for ourselves, leave alone fodder for the animals", Baijanti says.

Their family and all others in their village have received two hectares of land as part of the rehabilitation package from the Kuno sanctuary management, but for many of them, the quality of this land is a far cry from the land they used to cultivate inside the sanctuary. "It has now been two years since we came away from our old village and still there is nothing we have here. Our land is full of boulders, crops have failed, and my children have had no milk or ghee to eat for months. How long can we go on like this?" Now, Baijanti has served notice on her husband. She says she will not come back from old Meghpura, even if indal chooses to come. ''I will stay there and lock after my cows, and he can return if he wants toll, she says, pointing to her husband.

Indal, however, looks far from happy with this situation, because he knows that life inside the sanctuary is not a bed of roses. The area is cut off from all development infrastructure, and also has a serious law and order problem, being part of the infamous Chambal belt, and the shifting away of all other villages has taken away what little security they used to have earlier. Moreover, all these villages have been shifted out as part of preparations for the lion reintroduction project, under which Kuno wildlife sanctuary is being readied to receive a small population of the threatened Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) from Gir National Park in Gujarat. Already, about Rs.11 crores have been spent by the sanctuary management on the lion project, including expenses on resettlement and rehabilitation of 24 villages living inside the sanctuary. Indal knows that the sanctuary management would not welcome the move back to the sanctuary by the villagers.

Dissatisfaction has been simmering among the villages relocated from Kuno wildlife sanctuary under the lion reintroduction project because of what they call failure of the Kuno sanctuary management to provide these villages with adequate rehabilitation.

Matters came to a head in early September 2001, when many tribal members of five relocated villages, namely Paira (Adivasi), Jakhoda, Meghpura, Laddar and Durreri, organized a well-attended meeting in Meghpura at Indal's house. This was actually a culmination of a number of small gatherings that had been going on for quite some time. During the meeting, the people present unanimously decided that in the light of declining living standards and widespread distress after their relocation, they would return to their original villages inside the sanctuary until improved livelihood could be provided to them at the rehabilitation site. Their main demands included fertile land, defined by the farmers as land with a soil depth of at least four hands, irrigation facilities for each agriculture plot, education facilities and electricity

During the meetings, the displaced people (over 90 per cent of whom are Sahariya tribals) were claimed that these were the major promises made by the forest department to induce them to move away from their original villages inside the sanctuary. However, there is not a single village in which all these promises have been fulfilled in totality till date. The villagers thus see the threat of shifting back to their old villages as a last-ditch and desperate attempt to force the sanctuary management to get its act together and fulfil its promises. "These five villages have vowed unanimously in front of the gods that we will not return from our old villages till our demands are met by the forest department", a village elder said.

The village meetings have since been followed up by a rally (padyatra) to Sheopur, the district headquarters, organized by the displaced villagers between Ist-10th October 2001, to draw attention to their plight. They presented a memorandum to the district collector outlining their major demands.

How justified is their demand? Given the trend of agricultural yield at the rehabilitation site for past three years and the present economic condition of the displaced tribals, it seems clear that except a few influential families, the majority have suffered a significant decline in living standards. This is true most especially of the families that have received poor quality of agricultural land as part of the rehabilitation package, and these households are not even able to meet their subsistence needs satisfactorily.

Crops have failed for the third consecutive year. Why? "The rain god has betrayed us", says one farmer from village Jakhoda. Meanwhile, access to other livelihood resources like fodder for cattle (and therefore milk and milk products) and non-timber forest produce has declined after displacement from Kuno sanctuary. As a result, there is severe economic pressure on these families, and their level of indebtedness to local moneylenders has gone up. Moreover, in many cases even loans (in cash or kind) from local moneylenders are not available to them because of their low repayment capability.

However, the general opinion is that two more factors, which are not natural but man-made, have added to their woes. Firstly, the quality of land allotted to the displaced families is not good, especially when compared to the type of land they were used to cultivating at their original villages. Although agricultural experts say that this land cannot be categorised as uncultivable, in general the soil depth and soil moisture conditions are much poorer than what was available inside the sanctuary. Particularly, there are individual agricultural plots that are extremely rocky, and cannot be cultivated, and in many cases people have not been allotted alternative land in lieu of such plots. While there are also many instances of such plots having being changed, the forest department finds this an uphill task, since the number of objections is too large and there is very little extra land available.

The important thing to note here is that the eagerness to go back to the sanctuary is greatest in those villages where problems relating to land quality are more severe, i.e. the number of affected families is high.

The second important factor that has prompted the exodus of villages away from the relocation site has been the absence of assured irrigation. Last year, the sanctuary management distributed funds among the villagers for digging around 60 irrigation wells. However, none of these could be completed in time for the kharif crop, due to delays in disbursement of funds. This implied directly that almost all plots (except those located near the two local rivers, Kwari and Jhilmil, whose owners have managed to save their crops by pumping water from the rivers) remained unirrigated. Villagers complain that the department did not pay them wages in time, and therefore they could not complete the wells before the onset of the monsoons.

This seems to be a valid complaint, because the number of wells being dug was far more than that the numbers for which funds were available in the budget for the year 2000-2001. This coupled with the fact that none of the three proposed lift irrigation projects were functional before the end of August (this was the time when the kharif crop needed water to survive) made matters worse. Thus, three agricultural cycles after village relocation began, the sanctuary management has not been able to assure irrigation to any relocated village.

This year, there have been no effective emergency support progammes (like food for work) to help the villagers in tiding over their difficulties. The villagers had no savings to fall back upon while their crops matured, so they have borrowed heavily against their standing crops. Now, since both bajra and tilli crops have died, moneylenders are unwilling to extend any further loans to these farmers.

The displaced villagers do not deny the fact that the forest department is trying hard to fight the impending crisis, and even grant that some day it may succeed. However, they argue that they do not have the economic strength to hold out till then. "We can’t afford to wait here and die", a man from village Meghpura said. "The department must allow us to go back and inhabit our former villages. We will come back once the government manages to gather all the necessary facilities." The wheel now seems to have turned full circle for Sahariya tribals like Baijanti, who are left with no option but to go back inside the sanctuary and pick up the threads of their lives where they left them over two years age. Meanwhile, it is clear that a move back to the sanctuary by the villages would be a setback to the entire lion reintroduction project, and would also render futile the huge effort put in by the sanctuary management over the past three years in the rehabilitation process.
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