General Manoj Mukund Naravane PVSM AVSM VSM SM is a retired Indian Army General who served as the 28th Chief of the Army Staff, as well as the temporary Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee from 15 December 2021 until his superannuation on 30 April 2022.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL YOGESH JOSHI, the chief of the Indian Army’s
Northern Command, received a phone call at 8.15 pm on 31 August2020. The
information he received alarmed him. Four Chinese tanks, supported by infantry,
had begun moving up a steep mountain track towards Rechin La in eastern Ladakh.
Joshi reported the movement to thechief of army staff, General Manoj Mukund
Naravane, who immediately grasped the severity of the situation. The tanks were
within a few hundred metres of Indian positions on the Kailash Range, the
strategic high ground that Indian forces had seized, hours earlier, in a
dangerous race with China’s People’s Liberation Army. In this terrain on the
disputed Line ofActual Control—the de facto border between the two
countries—every metre of elevation translates to strategic dominance. The
Indian soldiers fired an illuminating round, a kind of warning shot. Ithad no
effect. The Chinese kept advancing. Naravane began making franticcalls to the
leaders of India’s political and military establishment, including Rajnath
Singh, the defence minister; Ajit Doval, the national security advisor; General
Bipin Rawat, the chief of defence staff; and S Jaishankar,the minister of
external affairs. “To each and every one my question was,‘What are my orders?’”
Naravane writes in his as-yet-unpublished memoir Four Stars of Destiny.The
situation was deteriorating dramatically and demanded clarity. Therewas an
existing protocol. Naravane had clear orders not to open fire “till cleared
from the very top.” His superiors did not give any clear directive. Minutes
ticked by. At 9.10 pm, Joshi called again. The Chinese tanks continued to
advance and were now less than a kilometre from the pass. At9.25 pm, Naravane
called Rajnath again, asking “for clear directions.” Nonecame. Meanwhile, a
message arrived from the PLA commander, Major Generally Lin. He proposed a
cooling down of sorts: both sides should stop further movement, and local
commanders would meet at the pass at 9.30am the following morning, with three
representatives each. It seemed like reasonable proposition. For a moment, it
appeared that an off-ramp was emerging. At 10 pm, Naravane called Rajnath and
Doval to relay this message. Ten minutes later, Northern Command rang again.
The Chinese tanks had not stopped. They were now only five hundred metres from
the top. Naravane recalls Joshi saying that the “only way to stop them was byopening
up with our own medium artillery, which he said was ready and waiting.”
Artillery duels were routine on the Line of Control with Pakistan, where
divisional and corps commanders had been delegated the authorityto fire
hundreds of rounds per day without asking anyone up the chain. Butthis was
China. This was different. An artillery duel with the PLA couldescalate into
something far larger.“My position was critical,” Naravane writes. He was caught
between “theCommand who wanted to open fire with all possible means” and a government
committee “which had yet to give me clear-cut executive orders.” In the
operations room at army headquarters, options were being considered and
discarded. The entire Northern Front was on high alert.Areas of likely clash
were being monitored. But the decision point was atRechin LaNaravane made yet
another call to the defence minister, who promised tocall back. Time stretched.
Each minute was a minute closer to Chinesetanks reaching the top. Rajnath
called back at 10.30 pm. He had spoken toPrime Minister Narendra Modi, whose
instructions consisted of a singlesentence: “Jo uchit samjho, woh karo”—do
whatever you deem appropriate.This was to be “purely a military decision.” Modi
had been consulted. Hehad been briefed. But he had declined to make the call.
“I had been handeda hot potato,” Naravane recalls. “With this carte blanche,
the onus was nowtotally on me.”It was a moment of profound isolation. Naravane
sat “with the map of J &K and Ladakh on one wall, Eastern Command on
another.” He could visualise “the location of each and every unit and
formation” even on theunmarked maps. A hundred different thoughts flashed
through his mind.The country was reeling under COVID-19. The economy was
faltering.Global supply chains had fractured. “Would we be able to ensure a
steadysupply of spares, etc., under these conditions, in case of a
long-drawn-outaction? Who were our supporters in the global arena, and what
about thecollusive threat from China and Pakistan?”They had the requisite
reserves, he concluded. “We were ready in allrespects,” Naravane writes, “but
did I really want to start a war?”GOING TO WAR can never be a purely military
decision. It is taken bydemocratically elected political leadership. During the
1999 Kargil conflict,under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, every action was debated and
approved inmeetings of the cabinet committee on security—India’s final
decisionmaking body on national security, chaired by the prime minister.
Memoirsfrom that period show the CCS being able to own its decisions and issueclear
directives to military commanders. The same was true of IndiraGandhi during the
1971 war that led to the liberation of Bangladesh.But, in August 2020,
according to Naravane’s account, there was neither anyauthorisation to fire nor
any restriction. No guardrails. No contingencyframework. By handing such a
monumental decision to the army, the primeminister had effectively abdicated
the responsibility of initiating, oravoiding, a military conflict with China.
It is not the army chief’s role toweigh India’s political and economic
situation, assess potential USdiplomatic backing, factor in the COVID-19
crisis, or calculate the risk of Pakistan and China combining forces. Those
assessments are meant to bemade by the government. Political instructions to
the military on suchmatters must be precise and unambiguous, not reduced to a
vagueinjunction to act at one’s discretion.Modi’s abdication stands in sharp
contrast to the public image he hascultivated since 2014. In limited skirmishes
with Pakistan, the Indian media—and later films and web series—have portrayed
him as a bold, decisive,hands-on leader. Modi himself has claimed that he
personally cleared the Balakot air strikes, in February 2019, despite poor
weather, suggesting thatthe air force could take advantage of cloud cover to
“escape the radar” ofthe enemy. The Modi government did enough Pakistan-bashing
and usedthe Central Reserve Police Force troops killed in Pulwama to
successfullycampaign for a second term. China does not lend itself to suchgrandstanding.
It is, in all respects, a far more formidable antagonist. But,for a government
deeply invested in narrative control, Naravane’s accountposes a serious
problem.
