A deep-dive into a CO’s life during counter insurgency operations
Brig B.L. Poonia (retd)
Whenever the commanding officer (CO) of a battalion gets killed during an encounter with militants, the news hits the national headlines, triggering a debate on whether it was worth sacrificing a life armed with enormous military experience, when a company commander could have, and should have, carried out the task, since a CO leading company-level operations goes against the conventional military teaching.
So now the question is, is it correct for a CO to lead company-level operations in a counter insurgency (CI) environment? Well, my answer is yes. After all, the command of troops is an art, based on character, ability and power of intellect. The aim has to be to achieve the desired results, and once a CO has been given a task, how he accomplishes it is his prerogative.
Field Marshal Rommel, even as a subaltern, used to unconventionally infiltrate through the enemy lines with a few men. The climax of his career during World War I was reached with the capture of Monte Marajur on the Italian front using such unconventional tactics, for which he was awarded Pour le Mèrite in January 1918, the highest military award of Prussia, corresponding to the Victoria Cross of the United Kingdom.
Leadership in war is among the highest forms of human endeavour. It requires superlative skills, a person to whom other men would unhesitatingly entrust their lives in battle. This can happen only when they are assured that he can willingly place his life in peril, to save their lives, and can lead them through personal example. This is the way for a CO to develop unflinching faith among his subordinates, which inspires the soldiers under his command to place their lives at his disposal, without a second thought or blinking an eyelid.
Moreover, a leader must have something more than normal. He must have a sixth sense, an intuition, developed through experience, professional competence, sharp judgement, self-confidence, and an ability to take calculated risks and quick decisions. Field Marshal Rommel had it in him and he often led from the front. During the African Campaign in World War ll, when the British raided his headquarters, 100 kilometres behind, Rommel was riding a tank in the vanguard squadron of the advancing column.
Field Marshal William Slim used to reach the frontline troops during crucial battles, even as a Corps Commander during the Burma Campaign. The ultimate aim of adopting such unconventional methods is to minimize human losses by ensuring the economy of effort, and thereby raising the morale of troops, which is one of the principles of war, with the ultimate aim of increasing the probability of success. Moreover, what is the use of studying military history campaigns and character studies of some of the famous military commanders, for various promotion and competitive examinations, if we are not prepared to learn the lessons and implement the same on the ground?
In any case, different situations demand different solutions. When you command an infantry battalion or any other army unit, which is well trained as a cohesive unit to carry out CI operations, there is no problem, but when you are sent on deputation to command an Assam Rifles Battalion, things are not the same, and your challenge increases manifold. However, before proceeding further, let me explain that Assam Rifles, though under the ministry of home affairs, is commanded by army officers on deputation. Hence, it is the only organisation in the country that ideally qualifies to be referred to as a paramilitary force. It is an excellent organisation with fantastic troops, but the problem lies with leadership, especially when you do not have a cohesive team of officers trained together. You have a mix of officers from all arms of the Indian Army, temporarily posted on deputation from different regiments, with a few Assam Rifles cadre officers, who are all through ranks. During the mid-Nineties, the Second-in-Commands (2ICs) of the Assam Rifles battalions used to be emergency commission officers, commissioned during the period 1963 to 1965, but released from the army after five years, and absorbed by the Assam Rifles.
Now I will briefly narrate the challenges that I faced during the command of an Assam Rifles Battalion during the peak insurgency period of the mid-nineties while conducting operations in ‘Operation Orchid’. An Assam Rifles battalion has six rifle companies, as against four in an infantry battalion of the Indian Army. In my case, the two companies were deployed in Tripura, with the Main Battalion Headquarters in Agartala. Both these companies had been deployed to occupy the areas vacated by two battalions, which had moved out of Tripura to other states like Nagaland or Manipur, since the Tripura insurgency was relatively low in intensity. Hence these two companies were spread out far and wide, the farthest post from Agartala being about 200 kilometres away, on the Tripura-Mizoram border.
The remaining four companies with Tactical Battalion Headquarters in Dimapur, 550 kilometres away from Agartala, were deployed in Nagaland in a high-pitch insurgency environment. The farthest company post was about 70 kilometres away from Dimapur. Those days, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) (Khaplang) and NSCN (IM) factions of the militant groups were active in Nagaland. However, NSCN (IM) faction was the more powerful of the two, which was ultimately brought to the negotiating table just at the end of my command, when a ceasefire was declared with the government of India with effect from 1 August 1997, in which my battalion had a played a crucial role by rounding up the major portion of their top leadership.
My 2IC was an emergency commission officer, commissioned about a decade before I was, and the four senior-most company commanders had already been overlooked for promotion. The remaining lot of officers comprised a few Assam Rifles cadre officers and officers from all arms of the Indian Army on deputation, with no experience of counter-insurgency operations. Fortunately, I had commanded a rifle company in Nagaland during the mid-Eighties in Operation Orchid, where I was awarded chief of army staff’s commendation, and had also served in Kashmir Valley during the peak insurgency from 1992 to 1994.
Moreover, instead of the usual three reporting officers in the chain of command in the Indian Army, I had six of them in the chain of operational and administrative command. However, all of them were from the Army, on deputation to Assam Rifles: DIG Agartala Range (Tripura), DIG Kohima Range (Nagaland), the operational Brigade Commander (Nagaland), IGAR (North) Nagaland, equivalent to a GOC of an Army Division, Corps Commander, and finally the Director General Assam Rifles (DGAR).
One of the sister battalions under the operational command of our brigade was a parachute battalion. To begin with, the Brigade Commander had full faith in them, but nil faith in us—our only fault being that ours was an Assam Rifles Battalion—till we proved otherwise through our years of hard work, where I personally led all company-level operations. I commanded the battalion for three years, during which we received 70 awards, including a Shaurya Chakra. A copy of the Special Battalion Routine Orders (BRO) is still available with me to support my claim. I was awarded a Chief of Army Staff’s Commendation for the second time, followed by a Vishisht Seva Medal, and the battalion was awarded a Unit Citation.
Here are some amusing incidents of ineptitude I faced. The Brigade Commander asked me for a photocopy of our Unit Citation, to display it in the Brigade Motivation Hall. I handed over the Unit Citation parchment personally to one of the young officers to get it photocopied from the market. He in turn handed it over to another officer through an NCO. Finally, they managed to do the unimaginable, that is, to lose this historical document, within a month of it being awarded, and within a week after it was handed over by me. Yes, you read it right; that is exactly what they did. The result was that even today, the battalion despite having been awarded a Unit Citation, is not in possession of the parchment, a document that should have been preserved for a thousand years at least. Well, how they managed to misplace it, and finally destroy it, to cover up the blunder created by them, is beyond imagination. But this was the lot with whom I had to deal with and depend upon, for conducting CI operations against one of the toughest militant organisations of southeast Asia, in my area of responsibility (AOR).
Then, one of the officers put up a false claim for transportation of his car to Agartala, which I refused to sign. Thereafter, he was always busy writing pseudo-anonymous letters against me to all my higher-ups in the chain of command. Though ultimately, he got caught and punished, imagine my plight throughout the tenure.
Then there was a minor change in the AOR for the road opening parties (ROPs) between my unit and the neighbouring battalion. This happened while my adjutant was away on leave. Though the officiating adjutant, while handing over the duties to the permanent adjutant on his return from leave, intimated this to him in writing, he failed to brief him verbally. This led to the adjutant passing orders for deploying the ROPs as per the boundaries before his proceeding on leave, resulting in a gap of about 500 metres. The militants, having discovered this, soon followed the security forces convoy on the road in a light vehicle, and escaped through this gap, after killing four jawans travelling in a vehicle ahead of them by firing a few bursts of AK-47 rifles, just before escaping.
So, I had no option, but to lead every company-level operation myself; rather every operation, irrespective of its level, where firing by the militants was expected. It was neither aimed at getting awards nor at getting a good Annual Confidential Report, but only to save the precious lives of the men I was responsible for, and to uphold the ‘izzat’ of my battalion; and to preserve my pride and self-respect. The tactical headquarters of my battalion was located just outside the corps headquarters complex, and I used to occasionally get summoned by the corps commander for certain blunders committed by my officers. However, I must admit that there were a few good and willing officers, but even they required to be pushed hard to explore their full potential.
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