{"id":200548,"date":"2022-08-18T18:12:51","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T12:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=200548"},"modified":"2022-08-18T18:13:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T12:43:50","slug":"soldiers-the-silent-partners-of-indian-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/soldiers-the-silent-partners-of-indian-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Soldiers, The Silent Partners of Indian Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/strong>The post is based on an article \u201cSoldiers, the silent Partners of Indian Democracy”<\/strong> published in The Times of India<\/strong> on 18th<\/sup> August 2022.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: GS 3 The Security forces and their mandate<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relevance:<\/strong> Role of Indian Armed Forces in Indian Democracy and reforms<\/p>\n

Context<\/strong>: Over the last 75 years, India has acquired the tag of being a responsible military power.<\/p>\n

What are the issues facing the Indian Military?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

India has been a diffident power when it comes to the application of military force<\/strong> as an instrument of statecraft. This has held back the Indian state from deploying the military on a number of occasions.<\/p>\n

History of Indian armed forces contributions <\/strong><\/h5>\n

(A) Phase of vital contribution to nation building<\/strong><\/p>\n

(a) Soon after Independence, it helped in the restoration of peace and communal harmony in several places in northern and eastern India.<\/p>\n

(b) It fought a land-air battle for over a year across two fronts in the Srinagar Valley-cum Ladakh sector<\/strong>, and the Jammu and Poonch sectors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

(c) Helped to quell a potential secessionist rebellion by the Nizam of Hyderabad.<\/p>\n

(B) Phase of declined contribution<\/strong><\/p>\n

The political class had misplaced fear of militarisation of Indian society. <\/strong>Therefore, they gradually stopped listening to the Indian military. For example, the ruling class ignored Generals Thimayya<\/strong> and Thorat\u2019s<\/strong> warnings<\/strong> and assessments of Chinese intentions and were side-lined for their views which were termed, alarmist. As a result, India experienced its only major military defeat in 1962.<\/p>\n

The military took an eternal 14 years for evicting the Portuguese from Goa.<\/p>\n

(C) Post 1962 resurgence phase<\/strong><\/p>\n

PMs and Defence Ministers started understanding the Indian military and allowed service chiefs to speak truth to power in the nation\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

The political executives started focusing on an indigenous defense manufacturing <\/strong>and licensed manufacturing ecosystem.<\/p>\n

As a result, India\u2019s military revived and won the Indo-Pak War in 1965 and 1971 conflicts. Another manifestation was India\u2019s \u2018fighting fire with fire\u2019<\/strong> response at Nathu La in 1967.<\/p>\n

(D) The post-1972 period<\/strong><\/p>\n

This time Indian forces learnt new lessons as they faced challenges of \u2018Full Spectrum Conflict\u2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Indian forces carried out Operation Pawan<\/strong> in Sri Lanka, Operation Cactus<\/strong> in the Maldives, and Operation Bluestar <\/strong>at Golden Temple, Amritsar.<\/p>\n

In the realm of \u2018No War and No Peace,\u2019 and strategic coercion, change was made in the strategies and structures for national security. These were aimed to allow India to flex<\/strong> its military muscle,<\/strong> which could act as a credible instrument of<\/strong> deterrence<\/strong>. India won the Indo-Pak Kargil war of 1998<\/strong>. However, it was a costly victory.<\/p>\n

(E) New Paradigm- Limited military action used as a means of political signaling<\/strong><\/p>\n

In recent years, Indian forces carried out military action along and across the Myanmar-India border against insurgents; and also had a face-off at Doklam<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Special forces and IAF carried counter-terrorist strikes<\/strong> after the Uri and Pulwama attacks.<\/p>\n

What is the issue in India\u2019s ongoing paradigm?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There is a reactive approach to external security challenges at present.<\/p>\n

What should be done?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

India must migrate from a reactive approach<\/strong> to a more proactive and preventive strategy<\/strong>. \u00a0This can only be achieved through the following steps:<\/p>\n

(1) The military should be nimble in its thought and action across the spectrum<\/p>\n

(2) It must have cutting-edge technology and synergised joint strategies across the land, maritime, aerospace, and cyber domains.<\/p>\n

(3) The military is an instrument of the state and a strong pillar of democracy. It cannot rest\u00a0in a complex and unpredictable global security environment with powerful adversaries<\/p>\n

(4) The Indian state has applied military power, ensuring it remains non-expansive and non-intrusive. This is part of a robust<\/strong> and resilient democracy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on an article \u201cSoldiers, the silent Partners of Indian Democracy” published in The Times of India on 18th August 2022. Syllabus: GS 3 The Security forces and their mandate Relevance: Role of Indian Armed Forces in Indian Democracy and reforms Context: Over the last 75 years, India has acquired the… Continue reading Soldiers, The Silent Partners of Indian Democracy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10343,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10496],"class_list":["post-200548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-times-of-india","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":2,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1702834851},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}