Mr Prime Minister, We Shrank the Dragon

By Pradeep Goorha

The Prime Minister of India, Manu Barot, conceives Vrihad Bharat Mission. It is a holistic plan to correct the historical wrongs through an overarching and strident change from the India’s soft state image. It involves reclaiming territories lost or willingly ceded by earlier governments to its neighbouring countries.
Among the eleven identified action areas, for India, the most crucial is liberation of Balochistan from the illegal stranglehold of Pakistan. The canny National Security Adviser has an ingenious plan that involves active cooperation from the other three members of the Quad, those being the US, Japan and Australia. Over several meetings the countries work out RAW protagonists, Vipul and Megha, are in the hot seat. India is waiting for the opportune moment to launch the plan. The Covid19 hit and the related unrest in China—being more devastating than China is willing to admit—provides that.
On August 14, 2020, Baloch rebels strike. The game is on. Within days, the world finds that both China and Pakistan are cut down to size.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Sep 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543707120

Pradeep Goorha

Pradeep Goorha is a published author of the historical fiction, Survival Redux, 2016. He is an alumnus of IIT Roorkee and Clemson University, SC, USA. A management consultant by day and a writer by night, he has been a media columnist—currently a recreational poet, and foodie by heart. Pradeep currently resides in India with his dear wife after over 30 years of invaluable experiences living overseas in Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, and the USA.

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CHAPTER 1

3 July 2020, RRC Warehouse,

Sistan va Baluchestan, Iran

After dinner at the large warehouse of the River Research Centre (RRC) on Khowr-e Bahoo estuary in Iran, Vipul found Megha moodily lounging in her favourite chair. In her signature long ethnic top and beige narrow bottom pants, Megha looked just the way Vipul fancied her.

Vipul, relentless in his pursuit, once again tried to cosy up to her. ‘How is it going, partner?’

His lighter mood evaporated pretty quickly, for Megha wasn’t in a mood for banter. In altogether different thoughts, she queried, ‘Mushtaq, do you know what the hell is going on in this waiting game? We have trained those fishermen and the mobikers over and over again. Mobikers have since surveyed their hideaway stations all over Pakistan … er … Balochistan. We should be ready, or aren’t we yet? I mean, men like Salahuddin and Abu Hafs are not used to sitting around twiddling their thumbs. They like action. I suspect they are getting dangerously restless. Marri is stoic in his expression, but I am certain there, too, are all kinds of doubts creeping in into his mind.’

‘Hmmm … So that is what is bothering you. Let me give you some dope here, Mahgol. I was speaking with Commander Rodrigues and Colonel Bhisht yesterday when they came in here. They are upbeat and all primed up. So are Iranians. The story is that after what China tried to do in Galwan Valley in Ladakh and the Indian Army gave them a taste of their own pudding, China looked stymied and back in the hutch with things to think about. But as is their wont, they want to still go on with their bravado. They have made their concubine – and I mean, Pakistan – move 20,000 soldiers into PoK for muscle flexing in tandem with China’s posturing,’ said Vipul.

‘So?’

‘It appears India is going to hype it all up some more with Prime Minister Barot and Chief of Defence Staff visiting the frontlines in Ladakh. Our defence minister has visited Russia to secure and expedite arm supplies. And there is a lot more optics such as banning all the China’s mobile apps and cancelling Chinese contracts in India. That feverish activity is toward keeping China and Pakistan engaged into their current Ladakh–PoK misadventure. That will completely expose their western Balochistan flank. It makes our task a lot easier.’

‘I can see merit in all that, but then we should make our teams aware of all that in whichever way they think best. That is necessary to keep their morale up.’

‘That aspect has been observed, and they will act upon it as early as tomorrow,’ assured Vipul, placing his hand across Megha’s shoulders.

The timing was once again not perfect, for Abu Hafs had just then walked towards them with intent to talk about something but promptly retreated, saying, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t be intruding the couple in their romantic moods. Mushtaq Bhai, it must be fun to have your wife around when on a tough mission like this one.’

‘Well, yes and no, Sheikh,’ said Vipul with a wink and then distanced himself from Megha.

***

CHAPTER 2

11 August 2020

On the excuse of Quad’s simultaneous joint naval exercises in two theatres, all four navies got into the act. This was the largest naval exercise ever conducted anywhere in the world. The first of those was in North Arabian Sea theatre involving Indian, Japanese and Australian naval vessels. Its expanse was from near the mouth of Gulf of Aden in the west and to Porbandar in the east. It initially stayed well out of Pakistan’s exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles away from its coastline.

The forward operating base for the Indian Navy, INS Sardar Patel, in Gujarat and the headquarters of the Naval Officer-in-Charge Gujarat, Daman and Diu, was to provide the logistical support to the Indian Navy units deployed in the Northern Arabian Sea running parallel to Pakistan’s international maritime boundary line. India’s aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, two destroyers, five frigates and a large number of auxiliary and support vessels led the show.

The Japanese Maritime Defence Force came in with a large number of vessels, including three of their guided missile destroyers. There were nine other vessels that could be called cruisers and frigates, but the Japanese insisted on calling them destroyers. Then there were three attack submarines and coastal vessels. Their replenishment oiler vessel, JS Mashū, joined the exercise, for it had to take care of the supply needs. The Royal Australian Navy came in with a destroyer, three frigates, a barracuda class submarine and a lot many auxiliary vessels.

Though it hadn’t anything to do with the naval exercise, the Indian Navy moved its nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, INS Arihant, to Assumption Island naval base in Seychelles. Another nuclear attack submarine, INS Chakra, moved to an Indian naval base in Agalega, which had been leased from Mauritius.

For exercises in Theatre-2, Australian Navy ships moved to Andaman’s INS Jarawa facing the Malacca Straits and to their Cocos Island facing the Sunda Straits, that is, the channel between Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. Some US and Japanese vessels moved into the area.

Map%201.jpg

Source: Modified Google Map

While these distractions were in play, the US Navy moved its eleven nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and nine conventional ones to the West Pacific, bracing the eastern seaboard of China, primarily in the South China Sea. Five more went up north on the east coast of China. Another two were placed near the east coast of North Korea, where they teamed up with a huge Japanese armada.

All the twenty-three anti-ballistic missile launch stations on the Indian mainland were secretly primed up to war-ready mode. India positioned its recently acquired Rafale jets at its stations in Srinagar and Leh.

***

CHAPTER 3

15 October 2018

Just about two years earlier on a normal Monday in Delhi, the temperature hovering in twenties at ten o’clock in the morning, Surinder Chopra, the deputy NSA and head of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), walked into RAW’s offices wearing a casual blazer. He wondered why he and three others from JIC were called to the strategic policy group (SPG) meeting.

National Security Adviser (NSA) Manoj Thapliyal, as usual authority and confidence oozing in his demeanour, was in the chair.

The difference of this one from all the other SPG meetings was the presence of some of the handpicked members of the reconstituted JIC.

In the large but unpretentious conference room, there were nineteen people from SPG, comprising the Cabinet Secretary, seven other secretaries from various ministries, the vice chairman of Niti Ayog, the chairman of RBI, three military services chiefs, the director general of DRDO, the director general of Defence Intelligence Agency and even the chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes for some reason. JIC was represented by Deputy NSA Surinder Chopra and three other officers.

Chopra was about ten seconds late, for all others were in their chairs by the time he entered the room. In his stride, he wished them all and walked up to the chair next to that of NSA Thapliyal. As the head of JIC, he probably deserved that honour.

NSA Thapliyal, taking off his eyeglasses, opened the proceeding with the overview of the Strategic Defence Review that was carried out three months ago. It was to be followed by short- and long-term security threats and finish off with ways to address those with the possible policy options.

He greeted all with a cheerful good morning and advised all that there was tested and secure drinking water in front of them, and there shall not be any other beverage or snack served during the meeting.

‘Ms Lily Tripathi and gentlemen’, opened NSA Thapliyal, addressing the lone woman, who was the secretary of Ministry of Finance, by her name, ‘as we know, the Doklam stand-off with the Chinese on Bhutan–China border from June to August of 2017 has had a momentous impact on us. The comraderies exchanged during President Yong Zha0’s first visit in October 2014 notwithstanding, that happened. Well, taken in isolation, that event was not altogether shocking. Our boundaries with China remain undemarcated, and face-offs keep happening with some regularity. However, Doklam was different in its dare and its duration of over eleven weeks.

‘More importantly, since 2004, China has been assiduously marking its presence in the Indian Ocean. Their primary need is to protect its oil supply lines running from the Middle East through the Straits of Malacca into the South China Sea. Its manifestations have been seen by one and all. Somebody in the US called it String of Pearls strategy, and the world has come to know it by that phrase.’

NSA Thapliyal then went on to describe China’s investments that extended from Hainan Island in the South China Sea through the littorals of the Straits of Malacca, including port developments in Bangladesh: Chittagong; in Myanmar: Sittwe, Hianggyi, Khaukphyu, Mergui and Zadetkyi Kyun; in Thailand: Laem Chabang and in Cambodia: Sihanoukville. They extended across the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, and in the islands within the Arabian Sea and into the Persian Gulf.

He continued. ‘What it does to India, in effect, is that we are getting more and more encircled by China, ceding whatever little control we had on Indian Ocean. They do it by handing out huge amounts of loans to these countries which they cannot ever pay back and soon find themselves in a Chinese stranglehold. The Hambantota Port of Sri Lanka is a case in point, where they forced them to hand it to them on a ninety-nine-year lease.’

The irrepressible Secretary of Defence, Madhur Saxena, interjected, saying, ‘May I observe, Mr NSA, that the problem is America’s waning influence in the region? Even pro-US nations such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines find it in their own self-interests to improve and develop links with China. Such is the might of money. Though we have held our own against China, we, too, are in a tricky situation where we allow sizeable imports from them. I admit I don’t really know why we do that.’

‘That’s true, Mr Saxena,’ observed NSA Thapliyal, his tone weary but still sober. He added, ‘I will pause here for other members to contribute to the discussion that has gone on so far.’

Almost all members, barring services chiefs, made their comments, expressing the bind India found itself in. Chief of Defence Staff General Jarnail Singh came in last, saying, ‘I address the chair to say that in modern warfare, numerical superiority in terms of tanks, missiles, planes and warships doesn’t count as much. It is a given that no country, whether nuclear or not, can afford to go for broke. In the end, it is economic clout built through military deterrence that everybody is after. In that respect, India is not so far behind that we don’t count at all.’

NSA Thapliyal took it from there. He said, ‘I will add some, General, to what you just now said. For India, it isn’t economic clout only. We have to also undo the wrongs we have done to ourselves over the last eighty years by being a silent spectator when our territories such as Aksai Chin, PoK, Gilgit and Baltistan, to name few important ones, were being grabbed by our neighbours.’

‘Mr NSA, sir,’ interjected Secretary Saxena again, ‘at the risk of disturbing your flow, I might add that in the Bay of Bengal, Coco Islands’ ownership went a diabolical route through Britain and Myanmar and finally ended up in the hands of China. That has rankled our Navy all along because the Chinese have converted these islands into a spying centre, and they have also placed an airstrip and a radar station in there.’

‘Yes. That too.’ NSA Thapliyal stopped to clear his throat and sipped some water.

He continued. ‘Honourable members, the Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and services chiefs met in September last year to discuss and come up with the first cut of a plan. We chalked it out and obtained its approval from the Prime Minister. Our PM named it Vrihad Bharat Mission. Those were a set of informal meetings, which I had referred to also in our last SPG meeting. However, our Prime Minister considers it necessary to take it through all three level of NSC, that is, SPG, JIC and National Security Advisory Board, with the purpose of seeking their views and then dot the Is and cross the Ts.

‘The crux of the plan is to encircle China our way. We don’t wish to go to war with them, and as General Singh said, they wouldn’t want to go to war with us either. In a war, we will hurt big, but we will hurt them too. Having invested enormously in protecting the seaway and building new infrastructure on land, China won’t go that route. Their entire policy is based on China’s desire to be the manufacturer and sole recognisable exporter of manufactured goods for the whole world. And, of course, creating a fearsome power footprint to go with that. That is their steadfast mission, and they cannot let that collapse with a pointless war with India.

‘We will encircle them by hurting them in their big-ticket projects such as CPEC going through Balochistan. We have had a fruitful discussion with President Rouhani of Iran in February this year when he was on a state visit to India. We will do similar things at Myanmar–China border and Vietnam–China border. Earlier this year, we leased Assumption Island from Seychelles and Agalega Islands in Mauritius for naval bases and other military facilities. And there are some more. For instance, one of those is our negotiations for leasing one of the three smaller Socotra Islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden. Some of these shall be covert operations towards a specific goal, and some shall be under the garb of commercial projects.

‘We have plans for each of these elements of the Vrihad Bharat Mission, and my deputy, Surinder Chopra, is well aware of those. Gen. Jarnail Singh, General Adhikari, Air Chief Marshal Dhanetiya and Admiral Yadvad, I must say these elements shall invariably