Monday 10 November 2014

CRPF defends the nation at HotSprings in 1959

An event that changed the course of Indian history
CRPF’s Operation Hot Springs
By Sangeeta Saxena












The CRPF men who gave the supreme sacrifice at Hotsprings


New Delhi. Very few Indians know that it was the Police personnel who were responsible for manning the 2,500 mile long border of India with Tibet until the autumn of 1959. On October of that year, at a height of 15,300 feet above sea level, in temperatures much below zero at Hot Springs in Ladakh,10 policemen were killed in an unequal combat with heavily armed Chinese troops.  
In early September a patrol party of Indian soldiers was captured east of Chushul by the Chinese and released in the beginning of October. It was a time when the nearest Army Garrison was at Leh. The only units available for the Indian Government to use to project force quickly were the IBTF(Indian Border Task Force) and the CRPF(Central Reserve Police Force) units in the area. As a repercussion the two forces, got orders from the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Home Affairs on 22" September to establish new posts right at the Chinese occupation line in Ladakh. For all intents and purposes the jurisdiction of the operation was given to the IBTF units under DSP Karam Singh and a force of forty CRPF personnel deputed to the IBTF under DSP S.P. Tyagi. The first outpost was supposed to be at a place called Hot Springs.



Memorial for the brave at Hotsprings 


On October 20, 1959, three reconnaissance parties were launched from Hot Springs in North Eastern Ladakh in preparation for further movement of an Indian expedition which was on its way to Lanak La. While members of two parties returned to Hot Springs by the afternoon of that day, the third one comprising of two Police Constables and a Porter did not return. Karam Singh sent out a larger team of ten policemen to go out and look for the three lost men who returned at 2300 hours that same night without success. But interestingly they had discovered hoof -prints on the ground which was proof of Chinese soldiers in the area.

At 0700 hours the next morning, on the fateful day of October 21, 1959, Karam Singh and Tyagi led a team of around twenty policemen armed with bolt action rifles in search of the missing policemen on ponies. The rest of the force was ordered to follow behind on foot. They reached the point of the hoof –prints, dismounted and awaited the arrival of the main force. On the arrival of the main party it was decided that Tyagi would stay behind and command this larger force while Karam Singh and his small group of twenty would follow the tracks and see if they led to the Chinese intruders in that sector. Because of the hill feature along the bank of the Chang Chenmo River where the hoof –prints continued, the two parties lost contact. At about midday, Chinese Army personnel who had the advantage of height by camping on a hillock, opened fire and threw grenades at Karam Singh’s party.
In the massacre ten CRPF men laid their lives  and nine were wounded. The main force under Tyagi was forced to retreat and their attempts to recover the bodies of the dead CRPF men later in the night went in vain since many of the forty men under his command had also been wounded to some degree or another and the Chinese still dominated the hill above the riverbank which they continued to hold even on the 22ndOctober when Tyagi was finally ordered to retrieve his remaining force back to Tsogstsalu. Four of the more seriously injured policemen under Tyagi were airlifted to Srinagar on November first to be placed in a Military Hospital there.

For Karam Singh and the other prisoners the tragedy had just begun. Five of them were made to carry the dead body of the Chinese soldier who had been killed. They were all put together in a pit six feet deep, seven feet wide and fifteen feet long, normally used for storing vegetables. It was covered with a tarpaulin which left several openings through which the ice-cold breezes penetrated. We had to spend the night on the frozen ground without any covering. No water for drinking was provided nor were they permitted to ease themselves during the night and the following day. For the first three or four days they were given only dry bread to eat. Frostbite had started to set in due to the extrme cold.


DSP Karam Singh 


On the 24th Karam Singh was shown the corpses of the Indian policemen killed during the gunfire and asked to identify them. Then for the next twelve days he was tortured along with the others to make him admit that the Indians had opened fire and precipitated the skirmish, which he didn’t. The interrogation continued on the 27th and 28th . On 29th along with Karam Singh and his fellow prisoners,  Chinese also returned the three Indian policemen for whom Karam Singh’s search party had started the hunt. The body of Constable Makhan Lal was never returned and remained unacknowledged by the Chinese. The last time he was seen was where the Chinese had forced Karam Singh and his men to leave his wounded body on the bank of the Chang Chenmo River under the protection of Chinese soldiers. He was most likely neglected and died of his wounds but there are no confirmations of this ruthless act on the part of the Chinese.
The bodies of the ten brave CRPF men were returned by the Chinese at the Sino-Indian border on November 13, 1959. At 8:00 AM on November 14, 1959, the bodies of the CRPF men were cremated with full police honors at Hot Springs. Karam Singh received a national hero's welcome. He was awarded the President's Police Medal by Prime Minister Nehru himself. The day of this gallant sacrifice is now commemorated as Martyrs Day by the Police all over India. Every year on this day, representatives of all the Police Forces in India gather at the Martyrs Memorial at Hot Springs to pay tribute to the Martyrdom of these brave hearts.




New Delhi got the news of the surrender of Karam Singh and his group of survivors under devastating Chinese fire on October 22, a day after the tragedy. On October 23 the Ministry of External Affairs submitted a note of protest to the Chinese Ambassador in Delhi. However, on the inside, Prime Minister Nehru and the Army Commanders had immediately come to realize that the region could not be left to the IB and police alone and army definitely needed to step in. Two days later from October 25 the Indian outposts in the region began receiving reinforcements and medical. On October 27 the Chinese Foreign Ministry informed India and the world that it was prepared to release the captured Indian policemen "at any time". On November 15, 1959, the Indian Army took over direct command of the frontier with China. It was one of the most crucial events leading up to the 1962 war.

Friday 20 June 2014

Will it be a level playfield in Modi’s India for both Indian and foreign defence industries?

By Sangeeta Saxena
New Delhi. When  Arun Jaitely India’s new defence Minister who also holds the dual charge of Finance Minister in Narendra Modi’s government, stated, India’s military, one of the world’s largest arms importers, aims to speed up defence procurement in the interests of national security, just days after announcing a tentative 100 percent FDI in defence, the Indian indigenous industry is skeptic whether these decisions will turn out to be a boon or a bane. The Nation has very clearly voted for development and  policy regimes that facilitate building a strong defence Industry in India are the need of the hour. But will 100 % FDI over the board help the indigenous defence industry? And this means both public and private defence sectors.

While the public sector firms are still trying their best to protect their turf, the biggest push to get more private players involved came when the Planning Commission called for Indian companies to be prime contractors for all major contracts. For private sector companies, which currently account for just 20% of India’s defense spending, this hand holding seems to have come at just the right time. The new procedures have a “buy and make Indian” provision — which means only local companies, including joint ventures with overseas companies, can enter bids for contracts.


India’s military expenditure accounts for 80% of South Asia’s total military expenditure and its defence industrial base is currently the second-largest industry after its railways. India has promulgated a new Defence Procurement Procedure 2013 with effect from June 1, 2013. While the policy is aimed at laying a strong emphasis on promoting indigenisation and creating a level playing field for the Indian Industry the government has sent a clear signal to major stakeholders in its defence industry to go for defence imports only as the very last route.
The new guidelines make it clear that while seeking the approval for Accord of Necessity (AoN) in a particular category, say, Buy (Global), it will now be necessary to give justification for not considering the other higher preference categories. This is expected to give a stronger impetus to indigenization and inevitably reduced imports from abroad. Foreign vendors can derive solace from the fact that under the new policy, the validity period of an AoN has been reduced from two years to one year. This will bring down the processing time of individual cases significantly.



Another point of interest is that the new Indian policy aims at speeding up the procurement cases. Service chiefs, heads of important defence bodies like Indian Coast Guards and other key functionaries have been given more freedom and their fiscal powers have been raised from the existing Rs 50 crore (US$8.85 million) to Rs 150 crore (US$26 million).
Stipulations related to the indigenous content have been clarified and made more stringent. Indigenous content requirements will now extend all the way to the lowest tier of the sub-vendor. Hence, import content in the products supplied by the sub-vendors will not qualify towards indigenous content.

The basic equipment must have minimum 30 percent indigenous content at all stages including the one offered at the trial stage. It has further been stipulated that an indigenisation plan will be provided by the vendor. These stipulations will ensure more meaningful efforts towards indigenisation. While a penalty has been stipulated for not achieving the required indigenous content at a given stage, a scope to make up the deficiency at later stages has been provided.

Likewise, in the Buy and Make (Indian) cases, there is no stipulation regarding the minimum indigenous content in the Buy component and the Indian vendor is given the elbow room to achieve the prescribed indigenous content in the overall delivery. This enables the Indian vendor the time to absorb Transfer of Technology (ToT), set up manufacturing facility while concurrently meeting the service requirements.
But this summer sees a new government and one which has it’s strong views on indigenization and FDI. Expecting a further change in the DPP post budget will not be thinking aloud. India has been the world’s largest arms importer every year since 2010, as its defence industry struggles to keep up with its international ambitions. The volume of major weapons imports more than doubled between 2004-08 and 2009-13 and India’s share of the volume of international arms imports increased from 7% to 14%, according to the latest report released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).


So does this mean the governments in the past never found the indigenous industry capable enough and hence bought either off the shelf or contracted from foreign OEMs? When it comes to requirements of the Indian Airforce the indigenous aircraft manufacturer HAL found it hard to chew and hence the pace has been very slow. Had the manufacturing opened up to the private industry big Indian names which have been creditably producing for army, navy and homeland security requirements could have come ahead with a plan for aircraft manufacturing too. If small European countries could have their indigenous production, would India have lacked the will power, investment and technical knowhow in it’s own industry?
“This government is committed to national security and we feel the red tape involved in purchase of defence equipments must be cut down . Balancing the resource constraint and making available all the resources that are required for national security is going to be the approach of the government,”  Jaitley said on the sidelines of a ceremony to commission two coastguard ships. Which very categorically means that the bureaucracy and babus have had their field days and it’s time now for hassle free purchase of defence equipment. A reason of happiness for both private players and foreign OEMs.



100% FDI might be a welcome step as far as the foreign OEMs are concerned but the Indian indigenous industry is looking at it skeptically. Even the big ones feel it will be giving too much on the platter to the global big wigs. So why not follow the age old dictum of slow and steady wins the race? This could be  a win-win situation for both the parties.

Punishment, Solution or Political Face Saving

South Korea disbands Coast Guard 



By Sangeeta Saxena

New Delhi. When the 6,825-ton ferry Sewol, carrying an estimated 476 people, sank off South Korea’s southwest coast on April 16, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing, the world had not anticipated that the axe would fall on the country’s maritime guarding force Coast Guard.
The government has come under fire over for it’s passive and uncoordinated response to the disaster. Allegedly, none of the Coast Guard's officers were found to have entered the sinking vessel in the early hours of the disaster, and an emotionally charged South Korean  President announced the disbanding of the force. "The coast guard's rescue operations were virtually a failure," Park said in a nationally televised speech. She is pushing for a legislation that would transfer the coast guard's responsibilities to the national police agency and a new government body she plans to establish. According to President Park Geun-hye , "investigation and information roles will be transferred to the [Korean] police while the rescue and salvage operation and ocean security roles will be transferred to the Department for National Safety which will be newly established".
It’s true that the coast guard needs to be reformed, but disbanding it because it has botched up rescue operations isn’t a very  matured response. Haeyang-gyeongchal-cheong, literally Maritime Police Agency is responsible for maritime safety and control off the coast of South Korea. The KCG is an external branch of Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries at peacetime. Recently, with continuous border crossings by Chinese watercraft, the Korean Coast Guard has deployed a significant number of heavy vessels to the Yellow Sea. The KCG has its headquarters in Songdodong, Incheon, and has hundreds of smaller operating stations along the coastline of the Korean Peninsula.
The Coast Guard Authority was formed on 23 December 1953 in Busan, at the same time a Maritime Police Unit was also established as part of the National Police Agency. In October 1962, new bases were established in Incheon, Yeosu, Pohang, and Kunsan. In February 1963, the aviation unit of the KCG closed, though it reopened in the 80's. Since 1980 the KCG began expanding its fleet largely, and in August 1991 the Police Unit was renamed the Korea National Maritime Police Agency. In 2007 the Korea National Maritime Police Agency was integrated into the Coast Guard.

 In the early 21st century, the fleet expanded to include various vessels of over 3,000 tons, and as of January 2002, the 'Korean Coast Guard Special Operation Unit' was officially formed. In the May 2008, the "Search & Rescue Maintenance Unit" was newly constructed, and as of late 2008, various sub-agencies changed infrastructural composition. The Korean Coast Guard plans to field more vessels over 5000 tons by 2015, and expand its asymmetric warfare force significantly by encouraging participation from other branches of the police.
The Korean Coast Guard operates 4 classes of heavy vessels (over 1000 tons), 3 classes of medium vessels (over 250 tons), and 3 classes of light vessels (speedboats over 30 tons). The KCG also uses several types of 'special purpose watercraft', such as firefighting vessels, barges, high speed scout boats, light patrols, and amphibious hovercraft. The KCG aviation unit fields 6 fixed-wing aircraft and 16 rotary-wing aircraft.
Rescuing isn’t the only job it has in hand. Korea Coast Guard ensures to protect sea from maritime crime and keep maritime security and peace. It has always been in the forefront for surveillance of marine pollution and prevention of hazardous spills in order to keep waters clean and to preserve abundant marine resources. It has always responded quickly against international maritime crimes including enforcement of Alien Migrant Interdiction by seizing current tendency of international crime. It performs to build a clean maritime environment through prevention activities thoroughly against hazardous spills or discharge and perfect pollution control. And traditionally the force has executed all these tasks well.
The onus of the disaster has been put on the Coast guard whereas the responsibility was to be shouldered by Maritime Police Agency and Korean Navy along with them. The Defense Ministry had appointed Adm. Hwang Ki-chul, the chief of naval operations, to lead the rescue support team, including the 14,000-ton amphibious landing ship Dokdo, three military aircraft and hundreds of naval and army commandos.  Park also apologised for the government's handling of the sinking,  and accepted the final responsibility for not properly dealing with this incident . So does that mean the President should resign for this failure?
Meanwhile Korean Coast Guard is coming out of the shock from this blame game. “All members of the coast guard will humbly accept the intention of the president and the people and continue to push forward with the search until the last remaining victim is found,” Kim Suk Kyoon, Commissioner General of the Coast Guard, said in an e-mailed government release.

It seems a case of wrong diagnosis and prescription by the South Korean President. If she doesn’t give a quick re-think to her decision , the nation and the region will bear the brunt of this rash decision, keeping in mind the dire need of having an active  Coast guard with North Korea and China perpetually flexing their muscles in the waters surrounding South Korea.