Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the Indian

Military, by Sushant Singh, New Delhi: Juggernaut, 2017, pp 193, Rs 299

Ghanshyam Katoch*

Military history has four main genres. The first is the ‘official’ military
history, or a military historian’s narrative. It is a narration of facts given
as accurately as possible, written in an academic manner with maps and
sketches. These are difficult to follow by non-military readers and, for
that reason, are almost never read by them. The second category are
reminiscences (autobiographies or biographies) of those who took part
in wars—mostly in important and commanding positions. They can be
interesting when written by a talented writer; however, tend to give a
one-sided picture of events. The third genre is military history written
in a racy manner, with first person accounts and human-interest stories.
These make the books interesting to read. They are written more often
by military historians who are journalists and are, therefore, attuned to
narrate history in flowing prose and a gripping-story manner. Lastly, we
come to the fiction-novel history genre, where a fictional story is meshed
in with the history and descriptions of campaigns and battles.
Sushant Singh’s book, Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the
Indian Military, falls in the third category. The author, a journalist who
was formerly in the army, has picked out three operations conducted by
the Indian Army that could be termed as ‘Out of Area’ operations. The
author covers three different operations, of which two were successful
and one was not. This is laudable, since any analysis of failure that would

 
* Lt. Gen. Ghanshyam Singh Katoch (Retd.), PVSM, AVSM, VSM is a veteran Infantry
Officer and an Associate Member of the IDSA.

ISSN 0976-1004 print

© 2017 Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
Journal of Defence Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3, July–September 2018, pp. 87–91
88  Journal of Defence Studies

bring out useful lessons is generally avoided. With his soldier/journalist/

scholar credentials, Singh is ideally suited to write this book. His aim,
as he states, is to re-live India’s overseas operations, because, as India
becomes a great power, the Indian military may have to operate overseas
again and must therefore be prepared for it.
The first narration is that of ‘Operation Cactus’. This was an air-
landed operation carried out by a Parachute Battalion in the Maldives in
November 1988. The Indian troops intervened to thwart an attempted
coup against the incumbent President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom who
had appealed to a number of countries for help, including India. While
the event took place 30 years ago, the actors involved and equipment
used would not be alien to the reader today. This is because we still use
the IL-76 and AN-32 aircraft which were used in the operation, even
as modernisation has taken place via the introduction of the C-17 and
C-130 aircraft. The Navy still has the Godavari class guided missile
frigates which figured in the operation. In the 1980s, increasing US
and Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean region had forced India to
consider a doctrine which stated that interference by any extra-regional
power in the perceived Indian sphere of influence was harmful to its
national security, and must be countered. The basis of our interventions
in Sri Lanka and the Maldives lay in this doctrine.
‘Operation Cactus’ was undoubtedly an Indian success. It was
launched to crush a coup by mercenaries of a Tamil group, the Peoples
Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). The success was
crafted through quick decision-making and close coordination between
the external affairs and defence establishments. This was possible because
of the clear articulation of priorities by the Prime Minister. This enabled
all agencies to work in unison to plan and launch a hazardous operation,
with practically no concrete information about the topography of the
target area. Also unknown was the strength of the PLOTE adversary (the
attempt to overthrow the government of Maldives had been planned,
funded, and launched by disgruntled Maldivian expatriates). The speed
of decision-making and reaction can be gauged from the fact that the first
report of shots being fired in Male, the Maldivian capital, was received
by the Ministry of External affairs (MEA) at 6 am on 3 November 1988,
and the aircraft with the paratroopers on board took off 11 hours later
at 5 pm. The force was on the ground 2,700 km away within a mere 16
hours of the call for help. Though the adversary was comparatively weak,
their numbers were equivalent to the initial troops which landed there.
 Book Review  89

Even when the landing took place, there was still an element of doubt
whether Hulhule airfield, where they landed, was in friendly hands.
The author walks the reader through the events, with personal
narratives by the force commander Brigadier Farooq ‘Bull’ Balsara, his
staff officer Major Vinod Bhatia, and a few others. The sterling role played
by A.K. Banerjee, the Indian Ambassador at Male, who providentially
was in India because of President Gayoom’s proposed visit to New Delhi,
has been well highlighted. He was asked to fly in with the paratroopers
and could brief and guide them in a situation where the task force only
had tourist maps to rely on.
The Indian troops broke up the coup attempt overnight. A few of
the top PLOTE mercenaries escaped by hijacking a merchant ship from
the harbour; they had on board a number of important hostages. The
mercenaries were apprehended a day later by the Indian naval ship INS
Godavari after it had been tracked down by an Indian naval maritime
reconnaissance aircraft. In hindsight, one can say that there were many
factors which helped the operation; the prime factors being the clear
political mandate, good inter-service coordination, motivated troops,
and daring leadership.
The second narration is about the debacle at Jaffna University in
Sri Lanka where under prepared troops were hastily launched on a
poorly planned raid. This was undertaken immediately on switching
from peacekeeping operations to offensive operations by the Indian
Peacekeeping Force (IPKF).The raid was planned for midnight 11/12
October 1987. The author writes that the task itself was unclear and
appeared to be a show of force with an alternate task to raid the LTTE
HQ in Jaffna University. The plan was for a company of 10 PARA
(Commando) led by Major Sheonan Singh to be heli-landed to secure a
Landing Ground (LG) on a football field in the University campus. They
would be followed by a company of 13 SIKH LI (Light Infantry) who
would take over the LG, and hold it till the rest of the SIKH LI troops
landed. The first wave of 40 men of 10 PARA landed without opposition
in total darkness. By the time the second pair of Mi-8 helicopters came,
LTTE fire greeted them. The paracommandos, who too were under
heavy fire, could not mark the LG. The pilots could not make out the LG
amidst the multiple tracers criss-crossing the sky, aborted and returned
to Palali. The first pair (Wing Commander Sapre and Squadron Leader
Vinay Raj)—who were now familiar with the LG—picked up 40 more
commandos and, braving ground fire which was hitting the helicopters,
90  Journal of Defence Studies

landed them. When they went back they came to know that the second
pair had not landed. However, since Sapre had given his word to Sheonan
to get more of his men, he and Vinay Raj made one more trip along
with the other two helicopters. By now the helicopters had suffered
multiple damage and RPGs and machinegun fire was being encountered.
Thereafter, any other attempts to heli-land were ruled out. A total of 103
para commandos and 30 SIKH LI men had been landed.
On the ground, the men of 10 PARA had suffered some casualties;
but they made their way into the university buildings around the football
field. They asked the SIKH LI under Major Birendra Singh to get into the
cover of the buildings. However, the SIKH LI did not move out as they
were expecting more of the battalion to be landing soon, including their
Commanding Officer (CO). They did not know that no one else was
coming. Their radio set was shot to pieces. The Paras themselves made
a fruitless search for the LTTE leadership and then set up a defensive
perimeter to wait for the relieving column. By this time, it was daylight
and Birendra Singh and his men, who were out of ammunition, had been
cut to pieces in the open football field.
On 13 October, the relieving column led by the CO 10 PARA,
Colonel Dalbir Singh, which had been greatly hampered by improvised
explosive devices (IED) in their move to the university, hit upon the
stratagem of driving three T-72 tanks over a railway line coming to
Jaffna. The column managed to link up with the paratroopers who came
out with only six fatal casualties. Unfortunately, 13 SIKH LI lost 29
men out of the 30 who had landed on that bullet swept LG, including
the company commander Major Birendra Singh. One man was taken
prisoner by the LTTE.
The final narration is of ‘Operation Khukri’. This operation was a
difficult operation carried out under the UN flag in Sierra Leone. It was
conducted on 15 July 2000 to rescue 223 troops of a Gurkha battalion
who had been besieged by superior rebel forces for 75 days. The task
was carried out by commandos sent from India, on a mission planned
and conducted by the Indian Force Commander of the United Nations
Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), Major General V.K. Jetley.
Operations such as these are undertaken without clear instructions as
well as rules of engagement. Failure can lead to a great diplomatic loss of
face besides the human loss. They require diplomacy, tact in planning,
and a strong face in execution. The account reveals the dangerous and
difficult situations that our troops deployed in UN missions have to
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deal with. Such missions are often seen by the rest of the country—
except those in the know—as pleasure trips. The narration brings out
the prestige our country earns after the successful conduct of precarious
missions under the UN mandate.
Here again, the author weaves in first person accounts by some
actors, notably the company commander of the 2 PARA Special Forces
Battalion, Major Ajoy Mukerjee, into the narration. The political and
diplomatic confabulations which are part and parcel of such operations
are brought out in great detail. The operation was a success, and
established the professional competence of the Indian Army and Indian
Air Force in an international setting.
In all three narratives, Singh writes without any attempt to paint
heroic pictures or melodrama. He very insightfully conveys and explains
the logistic challenges and organisational complexities of such operations.
Reading the book reinforces the thought that the Indian establishment
needs to bring out the official histories of these events—these have still
not been written. In particular, the reluctance to study the Sri Lanka
experience needs to be overcome, and an official history of Op Pawan
needs to be made public so that the lessons from our only major overseas
Tri-Service operation can be studied. Only then can we be confident of
emerging victors in similar situations in the future.
The book is a very readable compilation of India’s overseas operations.
It is recommended for those interested in this facet of Indian military
history which is so often overlooked. It is especially recommended for
the non-military reader. One hopes that this book will motivate others
into writing detailed histories separately for other individual operations
in the same genre.
In the class of military history of this genre, the trilogy by the Irish
journalist and author, Cornelius Ryan, clearly stand out. His three
books—The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, and The Last Battle—are
classics, and eminently readable military histories because of the extensive
inter-weaving of first person accounts by protagonists from both sides.
One looks forward to the emergence of that class of writing on Indian
military history heralded by Mission Overseas.