The Failure of the Sundarji Doctrine in Operation Parakram
Following the successful operational innovations displayed during the 1971 war, the Indian Army underwent a reorganization in the 1980s that was principally directed by Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Krishnaswamy Sundarrajan. Under Sundarji’s strategy, the international border was protected by seven defensive “holding corps,” which consisted of infantry divisions for static defense, mobile mechanized divisions that could respond to enemy penetrations, and a small number of armored units. Although possessing limited offensive power, as their name implies, the primary role of the holding
corps during a war was to check an enemy advance by manning the extensive defensive obstacles constructed in the border region.
Sundarji concentrated the army’s offensive power into three mobile armored columns that were capable of striking deep into Pakistan. Each “strike corps” was built around an armored division with mechanized infantry and extensive artillery support. In a war,
after the holding corps halted a Pakistani attack, the strike corps would counterattack from their bases in central India (I Corps in Mathura, II Corps in Ambala, and XXI Corps in Bhopal) and penetrate deep into Pakistani territory to destroy the Pakistan Army’s own
two strike corps (known as Army Reserve North and Army Reserve South) through “deep sledgehammer blows” in a high-intensity battle of attrition. The strike corps would operate under the protection of the Indian Air Force, which would be expected to first gain air superiority over Pakistan and then provide close air support to ground
operations.
Although innovative, the Sundarji’s doctrine proved poorly suited to respond to the challenges posed by Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir. Following the December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi by suspected Kashmiri militants, India attempted to compel Pakistan to ban the Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, extradite twenty named individuals accused of terrorism in India, and prevent militants from crossing the line-of-control into Kashmir by launching Operation Parakram (Operation Valor) on December 18, the largest activation of Indian forces since
the 1971 Bangladesh war. Although uncertainty still surrounds the actual objectives of Operation Parakram, at a minimum, India clearly intended to signal to Pakistan that, nuclear weapons or not, it was willing to go to war to end Pakistani support for militants in Kashmir. After the attack on the heart of its government, “something concrete needed to be done to show people at home and in the international community that India meant business.” Unfortunately for India’s efforts, the decisiveness of its message was undercut by the inability of the Indian Army to present a timely threat to Pakistan.
The armored columns of the strike corps took nearly three weeks to make their way to the international border area after the mobilization order was given. In this intervening period, the Pakistan Army was able to countermobilize on the border, and more
important, major powers became increasingly concerned by the extent of India’s military mobilization and counseled New Delhi to exercise restraint. Although initially sympathetic to India in the wake of the December 13 attack, the United Kingdom and the United States, which was conducting military operations in Afghanistan from support bases in Pakistan, were troubled by Delhi’s increasing forcefulness as well as the subsequent diversion of Pakistani forces away from operations along the Afghan border that occurred in response to Parakram. Senior British and American officials urged the
Indian government to refrain from military action until Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf delivered his “about turn” speech on January 12, 2002. In a nationwide address Musharraf denounced terrorism in the name of Kashmir and pledged a renewed crackdown on militant groups in Pakistan. By the time the strike corps had reached the border region, India’s political justification for military action was significantly reduced as a result of Musharraf’s declaration, and Operation Parakram quickly lost momentum. The result was a ten-month standoff, which cost an estimated $2 billion and ended with India’s quiet withdrawal rather than a military clash.
Assessment of Operation Parakram’s outcome within India was mixed. Senior government officials, including the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the National Security Advisor have all claimed that the mobilization was a successful exercise in coercive diplomacy as it pressured Washington and Islamabad to take action against Islamic militant groups based in Pakistan. In contrast, a number of independent observers believe that Operation Parakram was a less successful endeavor. For example, former COAS Shankar Roychoudhry called the mass mobilization a “pointless gesture” that had harmed India’s credibility while journalist Praveen Swami went further in denouncing Operation Parakram as “arguably the most ill-conceived maneuver in Indian military history,” which “ended as an ignominious retreat after having failed to secure even its minimum objectives.” Bolstering the critics’ case is the fact that India had failed to achieve either the extradition of the wanted criminals or, despite Musharraf’s public statements, a permanent end to Pakistani support for terrorism within India. This
latter failure was made clear in the years following Operation Parakram as the death toll from terrorist attacks in Kashmir continued to rise.
