Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane, the twenty eighth Chief of Army Staff, mentioned China adopted “wolf-warrior diplomacy” and “salami-slicing” ways with impunity browbeating smaller neighbours, including it took the Indian Army to present to the world that “enough is enough” and problem the “neighbourhood bully”. He offered a uncommon perception into the lethal Galwan Valley clashes, saying Chinese President Xi Jinping will not forget June 16 any time quickly as China’s People’s Liberation Army suffered “fatal casualties” for the primary time in over twenty years within the combating.
Naravane in his memoirs ‘Four Stars of Destiny’ recounted the Indian response to the Chinese aggression in Eastern Ladakh in 2020, which will be printed by Penguin Random House India and it will hit the stands subsequent month.
He offered a gripping account of the India-China confrontation earlier than and after the lethal Galwan Valley incident, India’s general response to the Chinese motion and the way it served as a catalyst to agency up the Army’s fight readiness alongside the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Former Army chief recalling the loss of life of 20 Army personnel within the Galwan Valley clashes in June 2020, asserted it was one of many saddest days of his whole profession.
His tenure because the Army Chief from December 31, 2019 to April 30, 2022 was primarily marked by the Chinese challenges alongside the contested border in addition to the rolling out of long-term reform measures to improve the fight capabilities of the power.
“June 16 is (Chinese President) Xi Jinping’s birthday. This is not a day he will forget any time soon. For the first time in over two decades, the Chinese and the PLA had suffered fatal casualties,” Naravane writes.
“They had been following wolf-warrior diplomacy and salami-slicing tactics everywhere with impunity, browbeating smaller neighbours like Nepal and Bhutan, while staking their ever-increasing claims in the South China Sea, without having to pay any costs, especially in terms of human lives.”
Indian Army confirmed the world sufficient is sufficient: Gen Naravane
“It took India and the Indian Army to show to the world that enough is enough and to challenge the neighbourhood bully.”
Delving into the general state of affairs alongside the frontier, Naravane, on the similar time, suggests having a “non-aggression” pact between the 2 nations pending the settlement of the general boundary dispute, saying it might go a great distance in restoring confidence and pave the best way for de-escalation and de-induction of forces.
On the Galwan Valley incident, Naravane says it occurred in view of the Chinese PLA refusing to take away two tents that it had erected in Patrolling Point 14 (PP-14), including following the adversary’s refusal, the Indian Army determined to pitch its personal tents in the identical common space.
The japanese Ladakh border row started in May 2020. Naravane says flag-level conferences had been persevering with at different places then, together with at PP-15 and PP-17A, the place troops fell again over agreed distances, thereby decreasing the possibilities of violent face-offs.
“At PP-14, however, whenever we asked the PLA to remove their tents, they kept changing their stance. From ‘some more time was needed’, to ‘we will check with our superiors’, to it ‘being beyond the mandate of the talks’.”
“From this stonewalling, it became evident that there had been no intention of removing those tents in the first place. To counter this, we also decided to pitch our own tents in the same general area,” he writes.
Naravane says when Indian Army personnel went to pitch the tents, there was a violent response from the Chinese facet.
“Col Santosh Babu, Commanding Officer of 16 BIHAR, went forward with a small party of troops to attempt to defuse the situation but the PLA were in no mood to relent and attacked the CO’s party too,” he says.
“Thereafter, it became a free-for-all. With darkness setting in, both sides rushed in additional troops and a see-saw engagement continued throughout the night,” he recounts.
Although armed, neither facet opened hearth, as a substitute utilizing batons or golf equipment and throwing or rolling down stones on one another’s positions, he says.
The former Army Chief says due to higher connectivity on their facet, the PLA have been ready to transfer troops ahead in armoured personnel carriers which modified the stability of their favour.
Naravane says he advised then Northern Army Commander Lt Gen YK Joshi throughout a telephone name at 1:30 am on June 16 that the Army should hit again and make the PLA pay the value for his or her misadventure. “Daylight revealed a not-so-favourable situation.”
“Few jawans who could not make it back at night or who had been separated started trickling back. Five jawans had died of injuries in the melee. The next morning, as the head count was taken, we realised many were missing,” he says.
“As tense negotiations began, many of our boys, who had either got disoriented or had been briefly detained by the PLA without food or medical aid, returned to base,” he says.
“However, 15 of them succumbed to the combined effects of their injuries and hypothermia. It was one of the saddest days of my entire career.”
The Galwan Valley clashes on June 15, 2020 marked essentially the most severe navy conflicts between India and China in a long time and the complete extent of the deadliest confrontation was identified the following day.
“We are in a profession where death is always lurking around the corner. Every patrol or ambush can be your last. As a Company and Battalion Commander, my unit had suffered casualties, and I was always stoic in the face of adversity or bad news. Yet, losing 20 men in a day was hard to bear,” he notes.
About the casualties on the Chinese facet, Naravane says it was evident that they “too suffered substantially”.
“Our men who were in Chinese hands had been kept out in the open and they had seen several bodies being fished out of the river. Whenever that happened, they were subjected to a fresh round of beatings,” Naravane writes.
“The sheer savagery of their response was in itself indicative of the losses they had suffered. Initially, they did not admit to any casualties at all; then many months later, admitted to four or five killed, including the CO on their side,” he says.
Naravane additionally talked about a report by a bunch of Australian researchers that put the determine of Chinese fatalities to a minimum of 38, A separate Russian (TASS) report put the determine nearer to 45 killed, which was in keeping with different intelligence stories, together with these from the US, he says.
Naravane says the time is ripe for the resumption of the special-representative stage talks to settle the border query between the 2 sides.
“Pending the settlement of the boundary dispute, which is likely to be time-consuming, articulation of a ‘non-aggression’ pact between the two countries would go a long way in restoring confidence, paving the way for de-escalation and de-induction of forces from Tibet/Ladakh,” he mentioned.
“Such a pact would be somewhat akin to what China and the ASEAN countries are attempting to formalise,” he mentioned.
The former Army Chief says the disaster in japanese Ladakh served as a catalyst for the Army’s rebalancing to the northern entrance. The Army moved many key models to the northern entrance from different components following the Chinese aggression.
“Though still inadequate, the increase in force ratios on the Northern Front will definitely make the PLA think twice before embarking on any misadventure, especially now that we have the offensive capability to take the battle into Chinese territory,” Naravane says.
“In our posture against China, we have moved up from dissuasive deterrence (defensive) to credible deterrence (offensive defence). With these developments, the PLA must have realised that a military solution to the border problem is improbable,” he provides.
‘Wolf-warrior’ diplomacy is a time period used for a sort of assertive diplomacy. Salami Slicing is a tactic used to seize territory piece by piece.Â
(With PTI inputs)
