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Book Review
Perspective on Indian military history
V. R. RAGHAVAN
MODERN WARFARE IN INDIA — From the Eithteenth Century to Present Times: Kaushik Roy; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001.
Rs. 1950.
Military history has traditionally been an account of how battles were conducted by commanders, or of weapons and tactics that made victories possible. There has however been a shift in this approach to include the social, cultural, and economic determinants of military history.
The new approach to understanding military history relates it to critical variables of a nation’s outlook on war and soldiers. It provides insights into the way society and political systems, or strategic culture, influence the conduct of war. Most of the interpretation of military history has centred on technology and western ways of war, seen mostly through British, American and European viewpoints. This book makes a bold attempt to present Indian military history from outside the ‘western’ paradigm.
Debates
The author posits his study of modern Indian warfare within the major macro-historical debates currently in vogue. The first is rooted in the belief that Asia and India had no answers to European military revolution in the 17th and 18th centuries. Yet the difficulties the East India Company’s forces faced in the conquest of Indian States proved that the latter could not only use technology but also rapidly adapt themselves to it. The other debate on the transformation of war from ‘Peoples’ War’ to ‘Total War’ is analysed through evidence of the campaigns of 1857 which was a ‘People’s War.’ The relationship between military and economic power is interestingly examined in the Indian context.
Paul Kennedy’s view that big military powers are always big economic powers is questioned through alternative arguments. In India’s context, this offers scope for an analysis by the author’s contention that an economically inferior Pakistan continues to pose a credible threat to New Delhi! The debate on the changed nature of war after the Cold War, and particularly after 9/11, is seen in the Indian perspective, marked by conflicts of identity, ethnicities and marginalisation. The author critiques the Eurocentric view that colonial wars were of an inferior variety in which the ‘eastern’ armies stood no chance against the superior technology of the west. A cross-cultural comparative analysis is attempted by offering useful insights into the possibilities that exist in the new approach to military history.
Strategy
The book moves away from the normative tactical description of battles fought by Indian military. It is a change from examining the way battles were conducted, to establishing an inter-relationship between technology, military thought, field operations, military organisational evolution, and the dialectical relationship between war and the state. The military campaigns in the post-colonial era are subjected to close examination of the war leadership that was demonstrated. It portrays that the potential of military innovation and offensive operations in full measure were really displayed in the 1971 war against Pakistan. The author’s assessment that Indian military leadership remained largely defensive in its doctrine and preferred positional warfare despite modern military hardware is not incorrect. That it had larger social and cultural causes is indicative of the merit of the new approach to examining history. The decades’ long counter-insurgency operation being waged by the Indian military is characterised as a campaign to subdue and assimilate rather than eliminate the insurgent groups.
The book traces the Indian politico-military culture of political accommodation and assimilation of opponents of the state, all the way from pre-Mughal to post-colonial era. Major ruling powers set the trends in warfare and India is no exception. The Mughal rulers had an outmoded preference for huge armies with tens of thousands of soldiers whose very size made them an unwieldy instrument of war. Similarly, their fascination with large guns requiring animal trains and even elephants to pull them left them with little battlefield mobility. In contrast, Maratha rulers’ preference for light horse cavalry allowed tremendous mobility but very small offensive power. The Sikh armies disdained working as foot soldiers due to their cultural outlook of the warrior class remaining horse-borne. The British trained the Indian Army for the defence of its realm which had a lasting impact on its outlook. The political-cultural drivers for this are touched upon in interesting detail.
Adapted
The question that needs to be asked is whether the Indian military outlook on war is unchanging and fixed in its cultural and societal mindset. This book confirms that in a world driven by information technology, the Indian military has changed rapidly and adapted effectively to modern warfare. Its limitation derives from dependency on foreign military hardware and inadequate indigenous technology. This book would have greatly benefited from a detailed examination of the political leadership’s role in setting the direction and giving the lead to its military in becoming a truly modern force. Whether in providing strategic guidance to the military, or in involving the military in strategic planning, or in driving the changes needed for joint operations, the political hand has been missing in India. It is in fact the real new military history waiting to be recorded. That notwithstanding, this book does provide a new perspective on the military history of India.
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