The Army Day Parade this year on January 15 was held in Pune for the first time ever. The parade held for decades in Delhi Cantonment was moved out from the Capital as it was considered politically expedient. Since then, it has been held in various parts of the country. Last year the parade was held in Lucknow. On the occasion of the Army Day, the Army Chief also held his usual press conference.

Threat Perception

The geopolitical environment around India has undergone drastic change in the past one year, primarily because of the USengineered regime change in Bangladesh. Dhaka now has a radical Islamist government which is highly anti-India. Bangladesh-Pakistan relations have been revived to the extent that under a Bangladesh-Pakistan agreement, Pakistan army is to commence training of Bangladesh Army in four Army cantonments of Bangladesh starting February 2025.

In November 2024, a 14-member team of Bangladesh Islamist parties, led by Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) leader Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher visited China on Beijing’s invitation, obviously to chalk out the future course of action, including Pakistan’s participation in the regional power game. A Chinese naval flotilla was the first to visit Bangladesh after the regime change. China and Pakistan are supplying arms and ammunition to Bangladesh. China has reportedly also supplied some fissile material. Bangladesh plans to purchase China’s Chengdu J-19C multirole fighter jets, F-16 fighter aircraft from the US and has deployed Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones close to its border with India.

China showed its true colours by demanding boundary changes impinging on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India during the recent meeting between the Special Representatives of both countries. Moreover, China has announced the world’s biggest dam on Brahmaputra River close to its border with India and recently announced two new Counties that include parts of Aksai Chin and Ladakh, which is Indian Territory. This last act and the barbarity with which the PLA killed Colonel Santosh Babu and a soldier accompanying him, which set off the Galwan Clash, indicates how unpredictable and savage China can be. The PLA reverting to the pre-2020 locations is a chimera. Not only will the situation remain tense along the border with China, according to intelligence inputs China has raised a new militant outfit in Arunachal Pradesh called the United Tani Army to thwart the construction of a dam by India over the Brahmaputra River.

Mohammad Yunus, Chief Adviser to the Interim Government of Bangladesh, has called to be prepared for war. Genocide against minorities, especially Hindus is continuing in Bangladesh and Islamists are preparing youth and children for jihad against India. In Myanmar, the Rakhine State has fallen to the Arakan Army (AA), who have also taken control of the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. Bangladesh is arming and training Rohingyas in Bangladesh with weapons supplied by Pakistan. By end September 2024, over one million Rohingya refugees have received documentation from Bangladesh. How many of the 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India are sleeper cells of Bangladesh/Islamists and ISI remains unknown.

Developments on Asymmetric Fronts

The security situation in Pakistan remains unstable with the Taliban, who believe in the rule of Sharia, attacking Pakistan. There are also inputs that Taliban cadres would be transiting India to trail Muslims in Nepal. India, therefore, faces the spectre of Ghazwa-e-Hind from multiple directions, in addition to grey zone warfare, as well as asymmetric wars. Also, where Israel crossed the nuclear threshold and dropped a tactical atomic bomb in Syria, it would be naïve for us to completely rule out China using tactical nukes to break the crust of our defences at selected places; like in Ladakh where it eyes the waters of Pangong Tso and Siachen Glacier, our armed forces must be prepared to meet these challenges, worst case scenario included, find solutions that simplify the task of the soldier.

A stream of new technologies and battle strategies are rapidly altering the way combat is conducted. Modern scenarios bring a level of complexity never seen in the past. In addition to the information complexity, conflicts would be fought across multiple domains; cyber space and electromagnetic included. Rapid technological advances imply that armies have to not only coordinate their movements and strategies with conventional forces on the ground and in the air, like tanks and fighter jets, but with a variety of drones. China has placed an order of one million ‘kamikaze’ drones to be delivered by 2026. Stealth, hypersonic and AI-systems play important roles in conflict but adding to the complexity is grey zone war - antagonists intentionally blurring the lines around whether a conflict is underway or not.

Year of Reforms Declared

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has officially declared 2025 as the ‘Year of Reforms’, following a meeting chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on January 1, 2025. This initiative includes:

• Simplified Procurement Processes;
• Reduced Timeframes – as fallout of streamlining procurement processes;
• Faster Decision Making – by delegating powers;
• Theaterisation – expected landmark achievement;
• Focus on Emerging Technologies – cybersecurity, space; AI, machine learning, hypersonic, robotics and their integration;
• Enhanced Inter-Service Cooperation. The defence minister said that these reforms would lay the groundwork for unprecedented advancements in national security and sovereignty.

Being the largest service, the Indian Amy will be most affected by these initiatives depending on the sincerity and speed with which these are executed. For example, simplified procurement processes, reduced timeframes and faster decision making have been the favourite cliches of the MoD over the past decade with little change. Isn’t every new defence procurement procedure declared as the ultimate?

Plans for Challenges Ahead

With regard to Theaterisation, following will need to be kept in mind: a single Theatre Command responsible for the China border will now also face enhanced threats from Myanmar and Bangladesh; strength of the IAF is reduced to such an extent that the government has appointed a committee to find solutions; in a multi-directional war, Army’s dual-tasked formations may not be able to switch theatres.

The Army must be prepared for prolonged war. This will require effective supply chains and logistics under battle conditions. For example, we have reportedly achieved 80 per cent of self-sufficiency in certain categories of ammunition. But do we have bomb/drone-proof storage and foolproof supply management for the same?

Finally, India must take the bold step of going for total privatisation of the defenceindustrial sector if we are to leapfrog the advancements around us. 25 ALH Dhruv helicopter crashes in 10 years is just one example why we must do this. If we are really serious about reforms, why is the much publicised reorganisation of the DRDO stalled? Why is the MoD adopting “self-assessment” with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) practically gagged?