The Second Seminar
"In this area the Indian Home Ministry directly commands more than ten battalions of the Assam Rifles.1 They report to New Delhi through a chain of command independent of the army, with headquarters at Shillong. Add to that the intelligence-collection units under the Intelligence Bureau. These forces alone account for more than twenty thousand personnel, and they are well equipped."
"Is that all?" someone asked.
"No. There are also independent artillery and armoured units. The 21st Artillery Brigade at Misamari, equipped with 130 mm light howitzers. The 45th Armoured Regiment at Kanchrapara. And so on."
"Lieutenant Colonel, I've been counting the Indian formations you've listed, and it does not come to ten divisions." A junior officer who had been taking notes asked without looking up.
"There is also the 71st Mountain Division, still forming. Currently only a skeleton. Division headquarters will probably be at Remahung. And the 23rd Infantry Division of III Corps, whose headquarters is not in Assam or the southern-Tibet area but at Ranchi, west of Siliguri. The General Staff assesses that this formation is held in the eastern provinces as the strategic reserve for the entire Assam group. In an emergency, this division would conduct the final action to seal the Siliguri Corridor. We assess this as the worst-case contingency plan the Indian Army Staff has prepared for a war in the southern-Tibet sector."
Lin noticed murmurs spreading through the audience. Plainly, India had not stationed a division in Jharkhand to guard against Bangladesh. The 1962 war had left deep scars on the Indian Army. India had deployed ten times the forces facing the PLA directly into the southern-Tibet region and was still worried about a Chinese breakthrough into the Siliguri Corridor, the sole artery connecting Assam to the rest of India. Evidently India had even prepared to abandon all of Assam as a worst case. But the Chinese officers present had to concede something else: such a layered, airtight deployment could only come from a seasoned, calculating commander. He had anticipated every move an attacker might make. Common sense said that with so many infantry and mountain divisions packed into that region, no conventional offensive was feasible.
"You can all see it clearly. Even though the Indian forces in this area lack armoured strength, an offensive remains extraordinarily difficult. Not only are they more numerous than in 1962, their defences are tighter, their intelligence collection more effective. The lessons of 1962 taught them a great deal. On the ground, the defence is essentially seamless."
"So we have to wait for them to pull divisions out?"
"Exactly. An interlocking defence fears nothing so much as the loss of a key link. My personal assessment: if the war in Pakistan continues to expand, two to three divisions will ultimately be pulled out. Most likely the 57th Infantry Division, the 21st Mountain Division, and possibly even the 2nd Mountain Division at Tinsukia, which is the core of the entire southern-Tibet defence."
"But they'll plug the gaps immediately."
"Correct. If they pull the 5th and 17th divisions back from the Line of Actual Control and consolidate with other units, that creates a problem for us, but it also gives the PLA an opening to recover some territory. If they instead try to maintain a loose patchwork defence, that system will develop flaws."
Every face in the hall had come alive. Even the note-takers in the front row had raised their heads.
"Comrades, this depends on how deep India commits in Pakistan, and on the effectiveness of our own intelligence work."
"What's your own assessment?"
"General Rani Aspad,2 the Indian Army Chief of Staff, is the architect of this entire defensive system. He has been managing this sector for more than twenty years, starting from his tenure as Eastern Command chief. I assess that he will firmly oppose pulling a single man out of the region. He is the greatest obstacle."
"Ha. Indian personnel decisions aren't exactly a problem we can solve." The colonel in the front row said with a smile.
"I believe you have all heard the saying that fortresses are taken from within. I believe Aspad will be dismissed within a few months."
"Dismissed? On what basis?"
"I have no concrete basis. Ten years ago, during his visit to China, my teacher dealt with him personally. So I only know that Aspad opposes an all-out war with Pakistan. He represents the pragmatist faction inside the Indian military. But his cautious line is bound to clash with the current Defence Ministry. And Defence Minister Singh is a… how should I put it. A headstrong man."
"It won't be that simple. The army has its own internal resistance. It won't just let the Defence Ministry dictate." The colonel said.
"Granted. If you were in their position, what would you do?" Lin turned the question around on the colonel. He was not doing this out of irritation at the interruptions; he genuinely wanted to test his chain of reasoning against an ordinary army officer's intuition.
"Me? I'm only a colonel, not a general." The colonel said, with a show of modesty. "But if I were in that position, I'd look for a compromise. For instance, commit the 7th Mountain Division, which already rotates in and out, to the Pakistan front. That division is only nominally attached to Eastern Command anyway. Then pull out the weakest formation, the second-line 57th Infantry Division, and send it west. On paper the losses look minimal."
The answer satisfied Lin completely. It matched his own conclusion exactly. He was now confident he could estimate roughly what Aspad would do; all that was missing was intelligence confirmation.
"Right. That thinking is perfectly reasonable. But if you are facing the prospect of a major victory slipping away, it becomes very hard to restrain yourself from throwing new chips onto the table."
"You mean the Indian Defence Ministry wants all of Kashmir?"
"No, no. Not Kashmir. Singh's ambitions are much larger."
The hall fell silent, waiting for Lin to continue.
"First, there is this passage. On counter-terrorism." Lin took a moment to pull up a letter in English from his computer and began to read.
"…The expansion of Islam will never stop. Lord Hamilton3 once said that they regard every man who seeks peace with them as a slave, and I find this not without merit. What we must do is answer them in kind, as the British did in the nineteenth century, or the Israelis in the twentieth: seize the most favourable moment and resolve the problem. If the United States ends its War on Terror, this door will close to India forever. But Congress cannot accomplish this task. They do not represent India's long-term interests. They merely watch and do nothing…"
Singh's thinking was saturated with prejudice and hatred. The hall stayed silent throughout.
1. Assam Rifles (阿萨姆步枪营): India's oldest paramilitary force, raised in 1835, currently organised as forty-six battalions under operational command of the Indian Army but administratively controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Their headquarters is indeed at Shillong, Meghalaya. Lin's characterisation as "directly commanded by New Delhi" accurately reflects the MHA chain of command, which parallels rather than reports through the army. ↩
2. General Rani Aspad (兰尼阿斯帕德): The Indian Army Chief of Staff, previously encountered in Chapters 17–18 during the emergency cabinet meeting. The Chinese rendering is 阿斯帕德 (Aspad); an author-side character slip in Chapter 32 produced the variant 帕斯阿德 (Pasad), which was used there in error. "Aspad" is the canonical form used in this translation going forward. ↩
3. Lord Hamilton (汉密尔顿爵士): Singh's citation is almost certainly a deliberate piece of author-invented orientalist cant, attributed to a plausible-sounding Victorian British peer. No verifiable quotation matches the content. The rhetorical move, attributing anti-Islamic sentiment to a nineteenth-century British authority to legitimise Hindu-nationalist positions, is historically consistent with BJP intellectual culture. ↩