The Submarine Hunt
"Doctor, in your view, what is really behind the Americans telling us this?" the Prime Minister asked. Kahan kept his composure; he did not ask Singh first, but sought Chandra's opinion first, for plainly in a matter like this Chandra would be more dependable than the impetuous Singh.
"Prime Minister, I thought it over just now in the car. First, this information cannot be wrong, and second, it is an obvious hint..."
"A hint of what..." Kahan pressed, a little urgently; he badly wanted to know America's bottom.
"A hint at the common interests that still remain between us. Though on the question of the war against Pakistan America differs from us greatly and will not support us, they like even less to see Chinese military power reach into the Indian Ocean," Chandra said; this was indeed his considered conclusion. He was sure the White House had let this news out deliberately, and this was its meaning, though it did not signify they could tolerate India lording it over this region.
"Just so; I think that is the message they mean to send us, a message released deliberately before I go to America. But then, what are they hinting we should do next?" Kahan asked himself. Deep and calculating in politics, he thought a little further ahead; he knew this move of the Americans' must have its own aim.
"I think they wish us to be a little tougher with China, so we can sink that Chinese submarine, very simple, the navy can see to it," Singh cut in, having found no chance all this while to speak.
"You must think thrice before you act," Chandra warned at once; he felt that what Singh wanted to do was surely also what the Americans wanted, for else why would they tell India the position of a Chinese attack submarine? So whether to act rashly was still a question mark; the study of international relations has never had a principle of pulling chestnuts from the fire for another,1 and the Americans, adept at this, were very good at making others take the risk for them.
"We cannot waste too much time weighing gains and losses; that submarine will not stay there long, she can run ten nautical miles in an hour, and we must find her with sea and air power as fast as we can," Singh said urgently. He knew that with every passing minute the difficulty of the search grew much greater.
"If we find that submarine, what then?" the Prime Minister was still hesitating.
"The best way is to sink her, and then, with all speed, announce to the whole world that a Pakistani submarine intruded into India's twelve-nautical-mile territorial waters and was sunk by us. Then release some evidence; of course the evidence can be fabricated, that is no hard thing, only prove this submarine was within our twelve-nautical-mile waters, and China will certainly not dare make a scene, and can only swallow the loss in silence, for after all they are in the wrong," Singh said.
"Perhaps they will endure it for a time, but this would beyond doubt enrage China," Chandra warned; he found that Singh thought only of the good, and little of the ill.
"Their freighters are carrying weapons to our enemy, and we can do nothing about it; if we give them a little colour on the sly, we can warn them that we are not to be trifled with, and the US government will realise our resolve and our ability to stand up to China, and America's position toward us may loosen a little. I think that, in fact, is the return the Americans hope to get for telling us this intelligence," Singh went on analysing; his mind was quick, and he had already worked out a plausible chain of logic.
"Is there no safer way?" the Prime Minister asked. He was a nationalist, and his political principle was not simply to please the Americans in everything. He felt that though there was reason in Singh's analysis, to jab China secretly with a needle counted only as reckless political speculation.
"As for other ways, we could use the fleet to force the Chinese submarine to the surface and make her lose face before the whole world. But the technical difficulty is great; if we do not really use weapons, the submarine may not surface. So I think that is not the best way," Singh said.
"I do not think so; I feel this is in fact a workable way. Besides showing our resolve, it can let America see the value of India's military strength, and yet we need not break wholly with China. For now the war on the western front is most urgent, and we cannot blindly force a permanent member of the Security Council to the other side. China has indeed given Pakistan some weapons, but so far it has been fairly restrained, and has not embarrassed us too badly at the UN; the presidential statement condemning our country now under discussion in the General Assembly was, precisely, initiated by America."
"Prime Minister, if you think this workable, I can have the Eastern Command fleet act at once, at least first find her with a helicopter, so she cannot slip quietly away."
"Good, do that; telephone the Eastern Naval Command and have them find this submarine. But... do not open fire..."
"And if they strike back, or refuse to surface?" Singh asked.
"If she enters the twelve-nautical-mile territorial waters and attacks first, then let the commander keep the right to return fire. In any other case, do not open fire. If she forces her way out, let her go."
"Very well, I will see to it at once."
Singh rose at once and left the residence to set about it, though he firmly believed the Prime Minister, out of his ignorance of anti-submarine warfare, had made a very wrong judgement. The Prime Minister supposed he could call out over a loudhailer and drive the lurking Chinese submarine up out of the water, but in an undersea contest that is very hard to do. To beat the grass is only to startle the snake, and would let the submarine below flee, leaving the whole thing a wasted effort; and then China would push it all away clean. Singh felt his duty was not to let such a thing happen. Since the Prime Minister had already granted that the commander could return fire as circumstances allowed, that meant he could act with a free hand. Who fired first is in fact a thing very easily explained, especially on paper.
Singh lost no time; on the way back to his office he telephoned the commander of the Eastern Naval Command, Vice Admiral Vijaypat Singhania.
The vice admiral was at that moment fretting over his newly acquired carrier, INS Vikramaditya.2 This ship had been handed over half a year ago and could form no combat power at all. The Russians, at delivery, seemed still to have left much unfinished; of course some systems had been fine at Severodvinsk, only they no longer worked once she reached Mumbai. At present, when this carrier's main engines ran, her speed could reach only twenty-two, at most twenty-four, knots; and her close-in air-defence system could not effectively tell friend from foe, and once switched on would fire at any target approaching from the air, so it could only be shut off. Her communications and navigation gear had many faults too, and she had very few aircraft aboard. So this carrier could only, in wartime, hide away in the Bay of Bengal for further refit and training, but the Garden Reach Shipbuilders at Kolkata had no slip large enough to dock this forty-five-thousand-tonne giant; here they generally repaired only medium ships of five thousand tonnes.
1. Pulling chestnuts from the fire: Chandra's warning, a Chinese idiom (via La Fontaine) for being made a cat's-paw, doing another's dangerous work and taking the burn. His read is that sinking 411 is exactly what Washington wants of India while risking nothing itself; Kahan, more cautious, settles on the middle option of forcing the submarine to surface to embarrass China without a permanent break, and forbids opening fire except inside the twelve-mile limit and under attack. Singh privately means to interpret that leash loosely. ↩
2. Vijaypat and the Vikramaditya: Vice Admiral Vijaypat Singhania commands the Eastern Naval Command. His carrier INS Vikramaditya (see C87N2) is barely operational: capped near twenty-four knots, a friend-or-foe-blind close-in defence that has to stay switched off, few embarked aircraft, and no yard on the east coast able to dock her forty-five thousand tonnes. Her helplessness is why the hunt for 411 falls to helicopters and submarines instead. ↩