Operation Deep Strike

by Rahul Badami

  “But,” Shikha fumbled for words, “this will only escalate the conflict. We should pursue diplomatic avenues. We got our independence through non-violent means. Not via a war. War is the last option that we should consider.”

  “War is simply diplomacy by other means. We have tried enough options; some people only understand the language of a gun.” The General spoke with the ruthlessness of someone who had experienced multiple battles in his lifetime. “And as far as our independence is concerned, I suggest you read up on our history. Even the British were forced to leave India after we fought with them.”

  “Folks,” Inamdaar looked at his watch, “we can deliberate on our options later. Let’s take a break for lunch. I think the next point of discussion is Responding to Internal Threats. We will reconvene in thirty minutes.”

  Chapter 3

  Shikha stared at her plate in the basement canteen. She had tried to eat the thali but the food felt tasteless in her mouth. Her mind was still at the meeting, cursing herself for opening her mouth.

  “You asked a valid question, Shikha. Don’t feel bad about it.”

  She moved her eyes from the plate to see Tanmay looking at her closely. He had also been present at the meeting, but he had been prudent enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything at all. It felt as if everyone there was out baying for blood, except me. I am not a pacifist, but this is not how we should go about things. The General will probably fire me for speaking out of turn.”

  General Vishwajeet Singh, the Chief of the Armed Staff was also the Director General of the Defence Intelligence Agency, and oversaw multiple teams including Shikha’s. The post of the Director General of the DIA was rotated between the three Service Chiefs and currently Vishwajeet Singh was at the helm of affairs.

  “You are needlessly worried. General Singh doesn’t like yes-men around him. And I don’t think the others do too. I am sure people appreciated hearing a counter opinion of the situation.”

  “You think so?” Shikha’s dread went down a few notches and she realized she was extremely hungry. She gobbled down a kachori and looked at Tanmay.

  “I am sure of it.” Tanmay said. “In fact, now everyone in the meeting will remember you for taking up a stand.”

  Shikha wasn’t convinced. “But what did the General mean when he said that I should read up on our independence?”

  Tanmay smiled. “Did you ever wonder why we didn’t get our independence in 1942 during the Quit India movement, or in 1945 after World War II ended? Why the year 1947?”

  Shikha thought about it and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Tanmay cupped a hand to his mouth in a dramatic gesture as if he was about to reveal a big secret and leaned in towards Shikha. “This is top-secret. The war in 1946 against the British gave us our independence in 1947.”

  Shikha shook her head, and laughed it off. “What war? There was no war with the British if I remember my history lessons in school.”

  “Ah, but there was one. The Naval Uprising of 1946.”

  “Wait. Are you saying, we fought against the British before independence? Why isn’t this mentioned in the history books?”

  “There are many reasons. But it all started a few years before in the early forties when the British proposed a deal with India. India had long been asking for purna swaraj” – full independence – “from the British and the Quit India movement was part of it. The British said that they would give us independence, only if we agree to give our soldiers to help them fight Nazi Germany. The British promised us our freedom after the World War ended. Our leaders agreed and a staggering twenty-five lakh soldiers volunteered to fight on behalf of the British. So we fought and in 1945, the war ended. But our troubles didn’t end. India was the crown of the British Empire, and the Brits didn’t want to leave it. They wanted to milk India as long as possible. The twenty-five lakh soldiers returned home, but still no independence.”

  “The British rulers went back on their word.” Shikha said.

  “In 1945, after the war was over, they gave a watered-down proposal wherein trade and defence would still be managed by the British Raj with no timelines for complete independence. The proposal was rejected outright. The simmering resentment against the British rule grew manifold. In February of 1946, it reached a boiling point. In Bombay, the naval crew were suffering from substandard treatment. They asked for better food and accommodation and their British officers ignored their request. The crew mutinied and took the ship to the waters. Using wireless communication sets, they informed the crews on other ships in the harbour as well as sailors on ports across India. The news of their abject treatment travelled faster than a viral Facebook post, and soon sailors from Karachi to Calcutta had gone rogue in support of their Bombay brethren. Ten thousand sailors participated in the uprising. They put up the Tricolour on the ships and threw aboard anyone who resisted the uprising. On the ground, in Bombay, British establishment buildings were ransacked and the Tricolour was hoisted atop them.”

  Shikha leaned in. “It must have been quite a spectacle.”

  “Yes, imagine a British gentleman and his milady, the cream of Bombay society driving their plush cars in the middle of the road only to be stopped by a boisterous mob of angry Indians. And ordered to get down from the car and then shout ‘Jai Hind’ loudly.”

  “I cannot imagine.”

  “I laugh whenever I try to picture it. Those elite snobs surrounded by the revolutionaries would have positively crapped in their imperial undies. After the British left India, PM Clement Attlee later confessed in British Parliament that there was no way they could hold on to India if the soldiers didn’t support them. Ten thousand sailors were involved in the uprising. It was a fraction of the twenty-five lakh soldiers that the Britishers looked with trepidation as a potential lynch mob. They were completely surrounded by Indians everywhere. It would have taken only another spark to rouse the Army too.”

  “So, they had their tail between their legs?”

  “Not quite, they shot their own ships to curb the agitation. Leaders like Gandhi and Jinnah condemned the rebellious act, and requested the mutineers to desist. Sardar Patel personally came down to Bombay and told the sailors to stop fighting. And they did.”

  “Why did Gandhi and Jinnah side with the British? They should have sided with the revolutionaries.”

  Tanmay took a sip of water and placed the glass down. “There were already talks in place for a peaceful transfer of power from the British government to India for many years. Both the leaders rightly thought that supporting the revolutionaries at this stage would undermine the political solution for India’s independence and could lead to anarchy post-independence. The uprising ended in just five days, but it was enough for the British to realize that the tide had turned. The writing was already on the wall. They had to move out.”

  “But why doesn’t anyone speak about this uprising? Why don’t our history books mention this?”

  “It’s for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. The Indian leaders feared anarchy. After the uprising was quelled, more than five hundred sailors were court-martialled for misconduct. They weren’t allowed to join the Navy even after Independence. They were patriotic freedom fighters, but we erased their names from history. Some say it was their fight that paved the way for our freedom; others don’t agree. But it was definitely the final nail in the coffin.”

  Shikha thought about what she had learned in school and then compared it with the information that Tanmay had shared with her. It was incredible how much of what you learned as a child became a part of your truth. She realized there were many sides to each story. Each more surprising than the other. She looked down at her empty plate. She hadn’t even realized she had been eating throughout Tanmay’s discourse.

  Tanmay continued, “If we hadn’t fought, who knows how long it would have taken. The British held on to Malaysia till 1957 and kept sending troops to the Middle East for even longer.
General Singh is right. Some people only understand the language of a gun. Peaceful words make us appear meek.”

  “And,” Shikha asked, “is that the reason the General wants a war? A quick and messy solution to a long agonizing problem.”

  “He talked about a military solution, and that’s different from a conventional war. You know, we have been hearing about non-violence for so long, it has become ingrained in our psyche and thought process. We cannot think of any other solution, and it always ends in the argument that we won our freedom through non-violence, so we should pursue peaceful methods in all situations.”

  “So, you agree to the General’s plan? You agree to an overt attack that will bring us war.”

  “I agree only to the observation that we should pursue all available options.”

  “It’s the same thing. How can we send our soldiers to Pakistan without worrying that Pakistan won’t declare a war that may escalate into a nuclear conflict?”

  “Isn’t Pakistan doing the same thing? They send their terrorists to attack our cities, infiltrate our military bases and behead our jawans. Do they ever wonder: India is a nuclear power; maybe we shouldn’t provoke them so much? It’s time to call their nuclear bluff and show them that two can play this game.” Tanmay looked at his watch. “Let’s go. The meeting resumes in five minutes.”

  “… and that is how we will respond to missile attacks on our territory.” General Singh looked down the table at his audience as he finished his talk. “Any questions?”

  Shikha kept her eyes on the documents in front of her. She wasn’t sure if she was going to ask any more questions today. She and the others had provided their briefs to the PM and the Defence Minister apprising them of the status in their respective departments. She had listened as others asked questions, and was surprised when Tanmay stood up to ask one.

  “Sir,” Tanmay started, “I am a member of the Advanced Warfare Systems and my question is to the group at large. We create Ballistic Missile Defence programs, but our systems aren’t tested as per a real-world scenario. We talked about using our BMD systems to shoot down incoming missiles, but we aren’t sure how effective they are.”

  Shikha nodded to herself. Tanmay had shared his concern with her earlier. The Ballistic Missile Defence or BMD in short was deployed to prevent enemy missiles from striking on targets within India by shooting them down in mid-air using missiles. Someone had used the analogy to describe the BMD system as stopping a bullet with another bullet.

  The General stared at him. “You are contradicting yourself. You say your lab created the BMD missiles, but you aren’t sure if they work.”

  “No sir, what I meant was that our BMD systems were given the green signal after few successful tests. But the tests didn’t represent a real-world scenario.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “In the tests that were conducted, a target missile was launched in the air, and then our BMD missile was fired. It tracked the incoming target missile and shot it down. Technically, the BMD missile succeeded, but in a real-world scenario, our enemy won’t send a single missile at us, they will send a dozen missiles at once. We should be testing with multiple missiles instead of one during the testing stage.”

  “Why don’t we do that?” Inamdaar enquired.

  “It’s because of budgetary reasons. We will require multiple target missiles and equal number of BMD missiles to shoot them down. And that will cost a lot of money. Moreover, no BMD system in the world is one hundred percent accurate. In a real-world scenario, we may not bring down all of the incoming missiles. Between reloading our missile defence systems and the short travel time to target from neighbouring countries, we may reach a missile saturation point, beyond which the BMD systems may get overwhelmed by the superior number of incoming missiles.”

  “Do we have a solution for this?” Inamdaar asked.

  “We are testing some prototypes, sir.” Tanmay said. “I am expecting a breakthrough soon.”

  “Good. Keep me in the loop.” Inamdaar turned to the others. “Next item on the agenda is a Leaders-only meeting. I would request everyone else to clear the room. Thank you for attending.”

  Shikha grabbed her papers and followed Tanmay and the others as they filtered out of the meeting room. Once outside Tanmay whispered, “So what do you think of our new PM?”

  Shikha frowned. “Too early to take a call.”

  “General Singh, I would like to know more about the plan you spoke of earlier today.”

  General Vishwajeet Singh glanced at Inamdaar. The top-level leaders-only meeting had touched upon various mission-critical items during the two hours they had been discussing. It had been a productive meeting and the General had been pleased when the PM had agreed to most of the items on his long-term roadmap for the Army.

  “The plan to neutralize the sea-based leg of Pakistan’s nuclear triad?”

  “Yes, I want to know how realistic it is.”

  The General saw everyone was curious to hear what he had to say. He trusted the men he had under his command, and he knew that they would achieve any objective he would set out. He spent a few minutes outlining the plan he had in his mind, and explained why it would be successful.

  “It will be a straightforward op. If you give your permission, I will deploy my team on this mission.”

  “You have my permission. Go ahead. I need results. We have allowed Pakistan to bully us for far too long. It’s time we show them a mirror of their doings.”

  “Thank you PM sir, you will get the results you want.”

  Chapter 4

  “So, you understand what you have to do, Armaan?” General Vishwajeet Singh, the head of the DIA as well as the Chief of Army Staff looked at him.

  “Yes sir, I do.” Armaan thought about the plan that the General had just outlined. It was a bold and audacious plan, and a lot depended on what they would find once they reached Pakistan. But Armaan knew that he could pull it off.

  As a member of the Defence Intelligence Agency’s covert ops unit, he had been to Pakistan multiple times for undercover activities, sometimes staying for weeks to complete his objective. Their activities were almost all black ops that never saw the light of the day. Their unit was so secretive that it didn’t even go by a name. The General had once told Armaan that he had an understanding with the Chief of the Research and Analysis Wing. To protect the DIA team and keep its activities anonymous, everyone was told that only the R&AW team carried out operations outside the country. It suited Armaan perfectly. He didn’t care about accolades or being in the limelight. He was only interested in completing the mission.

  This would comparatively be a short stint.

  The General echoed his thoughts. “It would be a quick job. In and out. This mission is critical though. I have told the PM that we will accomplish it.”

  “Sir, you can count on me. I promise I will come back only after the mission is completed.”

  “Excellent. I know you have always delivered results.”

  Armaan asked, “What about the team?”

  “Baldev will be there with you as usual. Roshan Gupta too.”

  Armaan shook his head as he heard the name. His brow darkened as he remembered the op in Bangladesh. “Isn’t there anyone else? He screwed up the mission last time.”

  “I checked the mission report, and his actions were understandable. I then went over his service record. He has a list of commendable achievements to his name during his stint with the Army. He deserves to be on the team.”

  Armaan couldn’t argue with the General, so he changed the subject. “What about Namit’s replacement? I will need a tech for the plan you have outlined.”

  “Hitesh Vohra is the name. You will meet him later today. There will be four of you. We will keep in touch via satellite relay. Your call sign is Markhor.”

  “And the op code?”

  “Operation Deep Strike.”

  The Sukhoi Su-30MKI screamed as it took off from the tarmac and rocketed into
the open skies above Hindon Air Force Station. Armaan watched it till it disappeared into the horizon. He always felt reassured by the sight of the titanium birds protecting India.

  The Hindon AFS was located some thirty kilometres east of New Delhi. Sprawled over an area of fifty-five square kilometres, it was known as the largest airbase in Asia. Its proximity to the capital ensured that in the event of a sudden war, New Delhi would receive air support in under five minutes against any hostiles.

  “Do you have any questions about the mission?” General Singh asked.

  Armaan watched the rows of C-17 Globemasters pass by as they drove past them. Their destination was a four-storey glass building up ahead. They were seated in the rear of a car and Armaan turned his gaze towards the General.

  “Why can’t this mission be done just by Baldev and myself?” he asked.

  “I thought we had already discussed this.” General Singh said. “You know we need backup and tech for our mission.”

  “I don’t want a bunch of rookies spoiling my mission.” Armaan still couldn’t get over the fact of how Roshan’s insolence had nearly messed up the Bangladesh mission and endangered everyone’s lives.

  “First off, they are not rookies.” General Singh spoke in a cold voice. “Their past record is exemplary. And secondly, it is not your mission. You have been selected by me to lead this mission. If you are not happy with your team, I can replace you with another group leader who will be happy with the team.”

  Armaan glared at General Singh. How could the General think of replacing him?

  He was a veteran of countless military ops from Kargil till date and had received multiple awards. There was no one better than him for covert operations. The General may be his boss, but he couldn’t simply dismiss him from the mission.

  “You won’t find a better leader than me.” Armaan spoke in a haughty tone. He didn’t care if he annoyed General Singh, but he wanted to make a point. The vehicle slowed to a stop in front of the entrance of the building. The driver kept the engine idling waiting for them to disembark.