By IDF on February 28, 2017
(If OP PAWAN 1987-91 INTERESTS YOU OR YOU TOOK PART or YOU ARE LOOKING BACK YOU MAY ENJOY THIS POSTING BY MAHENDRA VED. MANY COMPLAIN INDIANS LACK MILITARY RESEARCH AND IDF CONTENDS THAT IF GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO DE CLASSIFY PAPERS WHERE CAN RESEARCH BEGIN EXCEPT EXPERIENCES AND VIEWS. THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND ! FULL TEXT 1500 WORDS ON www.indiadefenceforum.com )
This is an IDF posting to emphasise the need to make the Government release the papers on, the 'Higher Decision Making' in the conduct of Op Pawan as 1200 Army lost their souls, most on foreign soil. They never knew or do we know today what it was for !
Such an eventuality for help cannot be ruled out in the future as India rises, and rightly a bright columnist/author Ved calls it India's 'Misadventure' in Sri Lanka'(main excerpts linked below).
More the reason the Services should demand a look at the official papers even if they are few, as IDF suspects. Ambassador Ronen Sen who was Joint secretary in PMO handling Sri Lanka then, in a public lecture said time is not ripe to release details. If so it can be done in camera by the Army, a duty to those brave and loyal Indians who gave their all, 'Khali Pilli' for Sri Lanka ? (Chapter preamble)
- INDIA'S WAR IN SRI LANKA 87-90 WAS IT INDIA'S POLICY OR RAJIV'S INSTRUMENT OF SELF AGGRANDISEMENT?
"Most Battles are won – or lost before they are engaged by men who take no part in them by their Strategist." Carl Von Clausewitz-1832
The Indian Army Div went in hurriedly on orders by flamboyant and brilliant Gen K Sundarji (those boys will be sorted out in days) by IN ships, Indian Airlines and IAF planes. No one asked for the aim. Adm RH Tahiliani Chairman COSC was in Moscow. Yet the fine Indian soldier did his duty without demur. The Navy and the Air Force supported to the best of their ability. They attempted Coordinated Command and Control, which was absent. Navy was controlled from Eastern Command in Vizag (Vadm SC Chopra), Army by Southern Command Lt Gen Dipender Singh (OFC), and IAF flew tons of supplies, food, chickens an personnel. IPKF HQ Madras (Lt Gen Kalkat Brigs Ravi Ipe and Nikki Kapur) did its own thing.
Actual control was by Gen K Sundarji personally assisted by then DGMOs and MA Col S Mehta. IDF slept four nights a week in Army Ops Room to see the drama unfold thanks to DDGMO Brig YP Malik! Did India have a strategy? This was and is a moot question.
For India's military foray into Sri Lanka in 1987, the strategy was left to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who was also the Defence Minister, and military commander was Gen. K Sundarji ( Unlike 1971 for the foray into East Pakistan Gen Sam Maneskshaw as Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee guided joint strategy, Admiral R.H.Tahiliani in 1987 was made to watch (Sunder's war his words), by PM from the side lines. The advisers were MEA with Sahadev ((JS), Messrs Natwar Singh, Romesh Bhandari, A P Venletaswaran, K P S Menon, and India's high flying High Commissioner in Sri Lanka Mr.JN Dixit, assisted by Mr G Parthasarthy of the Planning division in New Delhi and PMO's JS Ronen Sen. The Intelligence agencies, the RAW was headed by Mr Joshi and later Anand Verma and IB was under M K Narayanan and their many operatives. All had field days with their machinations, as villains of the piece having trained LTTE also. An IB operative fell to the charms of a PANAM hostess and was caught !
An analysis of the events leading to India's actions in Sri Lanka is attempted in this chapter, to inquire if the aim of India was to obtain greater autonomy for Tamils, relieve the pressure on the Tamils, take on the LTTE or some other diffused aim, like maintaining the integrity of Sri LANKA, or prevent foreign interference, a bogey highlighted by Ambassador Mani. Mrs Gandhi in her time looked at the Sri Lankan Tamil problem quite differently from Rajiv Gandhi, not to get involved but planned.
BY MAHENDRA VED – 25 FEBRUARY 2017
(
excerpts Full text on www.indiadefenceforum.com)
The Week caricatured the 1987 India-Sri Lanka Agreement in mythological terms: "Ravana need not kidnap Seeta to get Rama to invade Lanka — a mere pact is enough!"
For almost three decades, India has been accused of conducting a "misadventure" in Sri Lanka, sending thousands of soldiers for peace-keeping, where it got thrashed diplomatically, and at home, politically.
Worse — it had to leave the island nation with 1,138 soldiers killed and 2,762 wounded without getting close to resolving the ethnic strife between the majority Sinhalas and minority Tamils.
Worst — Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who had signed the July 1987 peace deal with Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene (JRJ), was assassinated by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres in May 1991.
RAJIV'S killing, masterminded by LTTE chief Vellupillai Prabakaran, himself killed in a Sri Lankan military operation in 2009, had more than a symbolic impact. It ended the popular support Tamil militants had enjoyed in Tamil Nadu and remains confined to fringe groups.
RAJIV'S killing, masterminded by LTTE chief Vellupillai Prabakaran, himself killed in a Sri Lankan military operation in 2009, had more than a symbolic impact. It ended the popular support Tamil militants had enjoyed in Tamil Nadu and remains confined to fringe groups.
The Gandhi-Jayawardane Agreement carried JRJ's promise of the devolution of powers to the Tamil minority and recognition of Tamil as an official language. It envisaged military assistance that took the shape of Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) for operations against LTTE in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.
JRJ had got the better end of the bargain that he breached under pressure.
India felt cheated when his successor, Ranasinghe Premadasa, joined hands with LTTE to send IPKF out before they could complete their job.
The accord got sidelined. Political leaders opposing it assumed power in both countries around the same time. The Lankan Tamils, who had put their faith in it, were in limbo. LTTE strengthened to fight on till it was crushed in 2009. Reconciliation remains a mirage.
"…IPKF and the Sri Lankan forces are getting on well together, and… the situation in Jaffna, while still far from normal, is gradually improving," Galbraith said in his assessment sent to Reagan. Things changed later.
The documents indicate Americans promoted rapprochement between Rajiv and JRJ, persuading the latter who had been unhappy about Indians training LTTE cadres.
Did they help wily JRJ use a politically inexperienced Rajiv to pull his chestnuts out of fire?
In the evening of the cold war, many viewed India with suspicion after its role in the 1971 birth of Bangladesh. A brief intervention in the Maldives in 1988 strengthened these perceptions. Its navy was seen as nursing "blue water ambitions".
Hardeep Singh Puri, who served in Colombo between 1984 and 1988, during the run-up to the accord and its implementation, blames both the international community and the United Nations for "looking the other way" at crucial moments during the crisis.
Commodore (Rtd.) Ranjit Rai, Naval Intelligence director at the relevant time, says the botched operations would require in-depth study of the objectives and whether they were achieved, if it aimed to obtain greater autonomy for Lankan Tamils, to relieve pressure on them, or fight LTTE to maintain Sri Lanka's integrity and to prevent foreign interference in India's neighbourhood.
Like most analysts, Rai thinks Indira Gandhi, in her time, viewed the Tamils' issue quite differently from Rajiv, and had avoided getting involved directly.
But, it is also true, as Puri points out; Rajiv inherited his mother's legacy of Indians training LTTE. The difficult course correction Rajiv attempted went haywire.
Former foreign secretary and National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, in his book Choices: Inside the Making of India's Foreign Policy, terms that "choice" between "bad and less bad".
As Stephen P. Cohen writes in his blurb to Menon's book, critics may feel "anyone can do it, and can do it better than the government — but the reality is that India was never spoilt for choices".
Puri stresses that, "Colombo itself ensures that the rights of the Tamil citizens are constitutionally guaranteed, and they are shown the respect and dignity all Sri Lankans get".
For any Indian role in future, he warns: "Working at cross-purposes, as would appear to have been the case for several decades, will create problems for Sri Lanka and India."
FIVE YEARS FROM PROMISE TO PARODY —
( A HOMAGE)
INCLUDING THE DISASTROUS OP PAWAN
"Bad administration can destroy good policy, and good administration, in turn, can never save bad policy."
Adlai Stevenson
"Rajiv had neither a vision of policy nor experience in administration . He was a very good person with handsome looks. He hailed from the Nehru Dynasty.
" To Rajiv Gandhi Ted Koppel of ABC Nightline on 13 Jun. 1985: "Forgive me, because this sounds like a rather indelicate question. But how does someone from five years ago having no role in politics
(go on)
to suddenly become Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy ? A huge Jump ? Rajiv Gandhi's Reply : "Well, we have a fantastic thing called the democratic process"
Bofors was his Warterloo.
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