WAR COLLEGE JOURNAL
SPRING 2007
"SKY IS THE
LIMIT· SIGNALS IN OPERATION PAWAN"
by Maj Gen
Yashwant Deva, AVSM (Retd),
Operation Pawan
Veterans, 2007, pp 371, Rs. 990.
A scholar, writer and defence analyst of repute, Maj
Gen Yashwant Deva, AVSM (Retd) was President of the Institution of Electronics
and Telecommunication Engineers for the years 2000-2002. During his service
career, he held various appointments in India and abroad. The latter included
on the staff of International Commission for Supervision and Control (lCSC) in
Vietnam, Military Attaché in Afghanistan and Chief Signal Officer of Indian
Peace Keeping Force (lPKF) in Sri Lanka. He is a veteran of 1965 and 1971 wars,
Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka and internal hostilities and armed conflicts in
J&K, Nagaland and Manipur. He is a recipient of Ati Vishisht Seva Medal for
his contribution during Operation Pawan.
He writes on technology and security
related issues of topical interest. He is widely quoted in India and abroad as
an authority on various facets of electro-technology, e-intelligence,
cyber–security, information warfare, and cyber and info terrorism. His written
works include, Secure or Perish (2001), Dual Use Information Technology: An
Indocentric Perspective (1997), e-monographs, Challenges, Opportunities and
Prospects (2002), ICT (Information Communication Technology) for All:
Empowering People to Cross the Digital Divide (2003), and Special Issue of
Technical Review on Information Security (2002), published by the lETE..
It was from the Rameshwaram shore that the Signals
set to explore the territories "yonder” and carry messages that bore,
envisioned too, the turbulent and the tranquil "beyond".
Operation Pawan was a defining phase in the history
of the Subcontinent and the Signals had the distinction of being at the cutting
edge of the time-line. The contribution of the Signals to operation proved
their substance, merit and nerve, both, in keeping peace and fighting war. It
anticipated the shape of things to come and set a paradigm shift to newer forms
of warfare, viz. from hierarchical to network strategies and grid structures.
This book, besides recording events and drawing lessons, has chronicled to
establish that the art of warfare and technology develop hand in hand and
neither functions apart from, or independent of the other. The Signals are a
unique fusion of the two, truly evocative and illustrative of the ongoing
Revolution in Military Affairs, conceptualised coincidently in the US, when the
operation was in progress in Sri Lanka. Had the Americans understood the
technological and psychological facilitators that abet and encourage terrorism
rather than merely concentrate on the mechanics of asymmetric warfare, perhaps
they would have been spared the tragedy of 9/11. It is time the leaders at the
helms, civil and military, realised that techno10gical revolution occasioned by
the information communication technology is deterministic. The debate whether
"technology pushes the doctrine" or "the doctrine pulls the
technology" is put at rest, conclusively in favour of the former.
Nonetheless to the uninitiated, it still calls for "time will tell"
proof, which is destined to come, as do other paradigms underlying the pattern
of social and strategic change. As events later proved, Operation Pawan was a
forerunner for the shape of things to come, not only for the Infantry but also
for the Signals.
For long, the Signals had been perceived as part of
"vulnerability" and often hauled over the coals for
"inadequacies". Operation Pawan set the tune and the trend for
abundance of communications built with Herculean effort and high ingenuity -
circuit by circuit, link by link, network by network, provoking flattening of
the command hierarchies, dynamically meeting demands of daily grouping and
regrouping, and above all creating a highly objective and unadulterated system
of hard and actionable intelligence. The merits of this system lay in its
availability to the commander right where and when he needed it; besides, it
defied the monopoly of the "agencies", and even' called their bluff.
The forays in tactical signal intelligence led to the Signals-enabled raids and
"Akbar" strikes, what came to be later known as network-centric
warfare, albeit in their nascence. That interception, mutation and
spin-doctoring of the data by the enemy can have deleterious repercussions and
take a severe toll is well known, but the fact that signal tactics borne of
precepts of total battlefield awareness, fixing the enemy spatially and
electronically, signal deception, counter deception and jamming herald high
pay-offs, was news to the commanders, Valuable lessons were drawn on signal
tactics, some for their adherence, and others for omission.The LTTE cadres were
highly communication sensitive for reasons of garnering outside assistance,
passing intelligence and spreading cant and propaganda, although they were not
communication-dependent for hit and run guerrilla actions. They were
specifically instructed to pick on communicators as prime targets. They
literally blew improvised explosive devices in the face of operators and
linemen.
The motivation for writing this book came to the
author from Lt Gen Depinder Singh, whose famous quote, "I exercised
effective command during Operation Pawan because of the power of electronics
behind me", now adorns signal centres and information rooms of the units,
and who made encouraging and commending references to the performance of the
Signals in his book Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka. Higher inspiration
is a gift of another book, The Gospel of Selfless Action: The Gita According to
Gandhi by Mahadev Desai.
The Signals were specific targets of meme warfare
let loose by the LTTE. 54 Infantry Divisional Signal Regiment had a taste of
LTTE's meme blitz during the demonstrations organised to whip up frenzy and
fume, of which Lt Gen Depinder Singh makes a lucid reference in what he calls
as "LTTE Pressure on Public". Intercepts of the LTTE helped in
reading their psyche of spreading "cognitive dissonance" by
mutualistic memes or tamas the impure guna, following the same evolutionary rules
as viruses. Incidentally, the science of memetics is the emerging field that
transcends psychology, biology, and cognitive sciences, and the art of war
associated with each one of the aforesaid.
The book aims at: firstly, to give a balanced account of the events; secondly, an attempt to analyse the plusses and minuses; thirdly, to make policy recommendations to fight wars of the 21st century, which are asymmetric and distinctive in winning by means other than hard-kill, viz. info, cyber, cognitive, memetic, robotic and nanotech wars in which communications, computing and artificial intelligence would have a role of primacy; and lastly, the most important, it is a tribute to 1,135 plus martyrs of Operation Pawan, 16 (more likely 18) of them from the Corps or Signals, to whom this country owes its integrity and freedom.
Col P Bishnoi