Tushar Shetty interviews Ajai Shukla: on India's Army Modernisation, the Two-Front Threat, and the Future of Land Warfare
Beyond the Indus, Episode 41 | The Diplomat
Table of Contents
1. Operation Sindoor: Assessment and Lessons from Ukraine
2. The Agnipath Scheme and the Manpower vs. Modernisation Dilemma
3. Structural Reforms: National Security Strategy and Joint Theatre Commands
4. Defence Procurement, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and Russian Arms Dependency
5. The Two-Front Threat: India and the China Challenge
6. The Future of Land Warfare and India's Adaptation
TUSHAR SHETTY: Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of Beyond the Indus. I'm your host, Tushar Shetty. Last episode, we spoke with Vice Admiral R.B. Pandit about India's naval strategy and maritime posture. Today, we turn our attention to the land domain. On paper, India has the second largest army in the world, but India's military is at an inflection point. Operation Sindoor offered a glimpse of what modern conflict looks like on the subcontinent, but it also raises hard questions about the
gaps it has exposed and whether India's armed forces are structurally equipped for the wars ahead, in an age where conflicts like Ukraine and Sindoor* are shaping the rules of the battlefield.
My guest today is Colonel Ajai Shukla,* one of India's most authoritative and independent voices on defence. He served in the Indian Army's Armoured Corps for
over two decades and commanded one of its most decorated tank regiments, before becoming a war correspondent and strategic affairs editor at Business Standard. He has reported from conflict zones including Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. He
writes for The Diplomat, The New York Times, and The Guardian, lectures at India's three service war colleges, and runs Broadsword, one of India's most widely read
defence blogs. He is also completing a book for Penguin that takes a hard look at the structure and battle readiness of India's military.
Colonel Shukla, welcome to Beyond the Indus, and thank you for joining the podcast.
AJAI SHUKLA: It is a very great pleasure to be with such an illustrious podcast. I look forward to our conversation.
1. Operation Sindoor: Assessment and Lessons from Ukraine
TUSHAR SHETTY: Colonel Shukla, you have written extensively about how Ukraine has transformed our understanding of modern land warfare. In the past year, India
faced its own conflict with Pakistan, carrying out Operation Sindoor,* which is
ostensibly still ongoing. In your view, how successful was, or perhaps is, Operation
Sindoor from an operational standpoint? And as someone who has spent years
studying both conflicts, what are the most consequential lessons that India's army
should be internalising from them right now?
AJAI SHUKLA: Well, that question pretty much sums up many of the dilemmas that are troubling defence planners today. The race, as it were, between technology and the equipment actually used on the battlefield is something that increasingly decides
outcomes, as we have seen in Ukraine over the last few years.
The death of the tank, for example, has been predicted almost since the time the tank was born in the First World War. What we find is that while many people have
made compelling arguments, and many soldiers have had to fight those arguments out on the battlefield, the actual death of the tank does not take place, because there are always counters and counter-counters that come into play. At a certain point, you may feel that an unmanned drone with specific capabilities is going to change the very look of the battlefield, but after some time a counter emerges, and you go on to business as usual with slightly changed parameters.
The war in Ukraine was a perfect example of this. The tanks deployed in the early stages of the war were under severe pressure, and it was becoming apparent that something would have to change, because the level of casualties was not sustainable. The Ukrainians eventually came up with counters, and the high rate of
casualties began to diminish. Then drones came in, counter-drone UAVs emerged, and countermeasures continued to transform the battlefield.
The Russians, as students of military history will know, suffered extraordinary casualties in tank warfare, particularly in the Second World War, in battles like Kursk and on the very ground being contested today between Russia and Ukraine. Those battles produced tactical innovations that the Germans, who were great innovators in tank warfare, also absorbed. But ultimately, the battlefield tends to stabilise. As has
happened in this case, we wait to see in which direction tank warfare moves in the future.
TUSHAR SHETTY: I want to ask more specifically about Operation Sindoor.* Was it a new tactical approach, a new strategy, or something else? And how effective was it from an operational standpoint?
AJAI SHUKLA: That is a very interesting question, and it goes to the heart of India-Pakistan relations. Sindoor is a red powder worn by devout Hindu women on the forehead as a visible sign of being married and, as it were, of accepting theduties of a Hindu married woman. When the Indian government retaliated in response to the terrorist strike carried out by Pakistan-affiliated groups, Prime Minister Modi named the operation Sindoor as a way of rallying the country behind the conflict and co-opting a certain sense of Hindu pride into the national narrative.This is controversial, and not something widely accepted by everyone, because there is an element of religiosity about it.
In any case, Operation Sindoor* was launched in retaliation for the terrorist strike, Pakistan responded with its own military action, and the overt fighting was
subsequently called off. There is no tactical innovation inherent in the label. It is more a question of rallying behind the flag. After a period of time, it appears the
operation served its political purpose.
TUSHAR SHETTY: So more a framing technique, shall we say, for what might otherwise be fairly standard military tactics, with nothing necessarily new in terms of Indian military strategy?
AJAI SHUKLA: There is certainly no tactical innovation attached to the label Sindoor.* It is more a question of rallying the country behind Hindu pride. That is
why, after a period of time, it felt that it had served its purpose.
2. The Agnipath Scheme and the Manpower vs. Modernisation Dilemma
TUSHAR SHETTY: Manpower costs consume a substantial portion of India's defence budget, and you have argued that this is problematic because it crowds out expenditure on capital and equipment modernisation. In an age where technology plays an increasingly decisive role on the battlefield, the government's answer has been the Agnipath* scheme, which you have also been critical of. Could you explain
what Agnipath entails, and why, in your view, it does not adequately address the manpower versus modernisation conundrum?
AJAI SHUKLA: This is one of the big debate points driving doctrine in the Indian military right now. India is, depending on how you count, the second largest military in the world, with land forces of around 1.3 million soldiers. They cover a land border of some 15,000 kilometres, most of it with China and Pakistan, both powerful, well-armed, and hostile neighbours. India also has a maritime border of around 7,500 kilometres along the peninsula, plus smaller borders with Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.
As the United States has shifted its attention to the Indo-Pacific maritime theatre, it has placed great store in India as a major bulwark against China, knowing full well that America itself has a limited capacity to fight in the Indo-Pacific. The Indian Navy, for example, has become an invaluable partner that must be brought into any coalition to build the numbers required to confront China. But this leaves India extremely vulnerable on its land border with China, which is what Indian military units are most occupied with defending, and also exposed to Pakistan. India therefore faces a constant juggling act between its troops on the China border and its motherland and maritime commitments. This is one of the key reasons why the large number of soldiers employed under the Agnipath* scheme is something the Indian military is constantly trying to manage, to ensure it does not swallow an inordinate share of the defence budget.
TUSHAR SHETTY: To clarify for listeners, this is not just a question of active soldiers. It is also about what happens when they retire, because the Indian
government guarantees pensions to regular soldiers. Agnipath graduates, however, are not entitled to a pension in the same way. Is there a more cynical reading of Agnipath as a scheme designed not just to manage troop volumes, but to reduce the long-term pension burden on the state, freeing up funds for capital modernisation?
AJAI SHUKLA: You are right that this is fundamentally about pensions, payments, and the allocation of competing claims on India's defence budget. Approximately 70 percent of that budget, which India as a relatively poor country can ill afford to spend so heavily on defence, goes towards salaries, pensions, medical benefits, and other facilities for retired soldiers. That leaves just about 30 percent for equipment
maintenance and for buying and modernising defence kit, whether modern aircraft, tanks, or other systems.
This has been a long-running discussion, and the Modi government finally took concrete action to reduce the budget share going to manpower and give a larger
portion to defence equipment and maintenance. There is no pension provision under Agnipath* because the whole purpose of the scheme is specifically to cut down on pension commitments. The jury is still out on whether it is a good scheme or a bad one, and whether it will generate resentment among soldiers who served the full pension-qualifying period, compared to those released after three or four years and absorbed back into the civilian population.
My own view, which you are at liberty to reject, is that the scheme so far has yielded a somewhat better ability to manage defence expenditure, and has brought a degree of rationalisation to what is otherwise a disordered allocation of resources. But there are still many imponderables in play, including the continued employment of retired soldiers in paramilitary organisations and similar bodies. Many people remain
sceptical about these grandiose labels like Agnipath,* which some argue have more of a Bollywood feel than a place in serious defence planning.
3. Structural Reforms: National Security Strategy and Joint Theatre Commands
TUSHAR SHETTY: India remains one of the very few major military powers without a published national security strategy, and its plans to integrate the three services into joint theatre commands remain largely unfulfilled. Why have these structural reforms been so difficult to implement, and who or what is behind the resistance? Are there valid reasons behind it, or is it largely bureaucratic inertia?
AJAI SHUKLA: It is a question that anyone thinking seriously about Indian defence immediately raises. Why has India not allocated resources and inter-service tasks in a manner that would answer many of these questions? The fact of the matter is that when India became independent in 1947, just two years after the end of the Second World War, it simply did not have the funding required for a properly structured defence allocation. Competing priorities in healthcare and other areas were absorbing a larger share of the budget, and the government did not want to make allocations it could not sustain, or find itself later having to explain why defence spending was being cut back.
There was also significant pressure from the victorious powers of the Second World War on countries like India, which had traditionally provided large amounts of
manpower, to continue doing so, to help order the world after the greatest conflict in history. The upshot was that not enough serious thinking was done about why
resources were being allocated the way they were. By the end of the Second World War, India's army was several million strong. Over the years, India came to realise it had to look after its own interests as a higher priority than serving Western powers still trying to exert influence over this part of the globe. We are still today trying to arrive at allocations and proportions that make sense for a country like India.
TUSHAR SHETTY: That makes sense in the context of India's early post-independence history. But what explains the hesitation today? One would expect that, given India's self-described ambition to be a major regional power and future great power, it would take steps like publishing a national security strategy,
which would signal long-term priorities to allies, defence partners, and crucially, the private sector manufacturers increasingly important to modernisation. What is holding this back?
AJAI SHUKLA: I am actually in complete agreement with you. India itself has clearly done the thinking on this issue, and many of these changes are gradually coming about. It is a function of competing national interests and the slow erosion of colonial-era alignments. India was culturally and institutionally more attuned to the United Kingdom and the Anglo-Saxon world than to Russia and the Warsaw Pact, yet it increasingly found its actual strategic interests aligned elsewhere. This contradiction, between what India was claiming in Western circles and the direction in which it was actually moving, is a debate that continues to this day. We are still hearing about India buying Russian arms, and why. I think this will take another couple of decades to resolve fully. But India, by virtue of its defence budget, its manpower strength, and its sheer scale, will eventually arrive at some kind of modus
vivendi* where it looks more to its own interests than to the interests of various pressure groups operating in the corridors of power.
4. Defence Procurement, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and Russian Arms Dependency
TUSHAR SHETTY: India has set ambitious targets under its Atmanirbhar Bharat* plan for indigenous defence production. Yet you have been critical of the fact that this plan tends to favour public sector undertakings over private sector participation, which is arguably essential if indigenisation targets are to be credible. At the same time, over 60 percent of India's inventory remains of Soviet or Russian origin, and
the Ukraine conflict has exposed the fragility of those supply chains. What would a credible indigenisation policy look like, and is there a realistic path out of India's dependency on foreign arms?
AJAI SHUKLA: There is no doubt about one thing: over-dependence on a single source of supply, especially for weapons and military equipment, is unwise, no matter how reliable that supplier may be. Russia has been a truly reliable supplier to India for much of the two countries' shared military history. But even Russia has tended to structure its supplies, costs, and contract terms in a manner that favours Russian rather than Indian interests, which is hardly surprising.
As a consequence of this reliance, other suppliers have been sidelined. France, Israel, and now gradually Germany are emerging as alternatives. It is probable that America will eventually take the place of many of these suppliers, for the simple reason that the strategic advantages of dealing with a vast industrial base like that of the United States endow the buyer with certain benefits, not just in terms of price and delivery, but in the political and strategic capital that accrues from dealing with a superpower.
India has had to overcome an ideological hesitation about American supply, and there have been instances where India has come off second best in negotiations,
partly because the United States has considerable leverage. But American equipment has been greatly appreciated by the Indian armed forces for its reliability,
and those advantages increasingly outweigh the residual complications associated with Russian equipment.
TUSHAR SHETTY: What about the broader question of localising production? The BrahMos* missile is one example where India has become an exporter to certain
countries. Is localising defence production, at least for certain categories of equipment, a realistic and worthwhile ambition?
AJAI SHUKLA: Localising production is almost invariably an advantage for the buyer. If you are buying from the United States or France, it makes sense to insist on local production requirements, because the advantages that accrue are manifold. It is not just about price and delivery, but about the buyer's ability to insist on guaranteed availability of specific equipment and certain capability commitments. Equipment purchased from America or France now typically comes with what they call availability percentage guarantees, meaning a certain proportion must be available to India at all times. You cannot be told that only 25 percent of your equipment is currently available and that you will simply have to make do. These are advantages that India is gradually beginning to invoke and insist upon, and they flow directly from the logic of Atmanirbhar Bharat.* For the time being, India is holding its
own in this space, particularly in logistics, but we will see how it develops from here.
5. The Two-Front Threat: India and the China Challenge
TUSHAR SHETTY: You have written that India cannot win a two-front war and should not plan for one. Given that the PLA has undergone substantial modernisation in joint commands, AI-enabled warfare, and long-range precision strikes, as well as significant infrastructure buildup on the Tibetan border, how wide is the capability gap today? And what would a more credible approach to the two-front challenge actually look like?
AJAI SHUKLA: To put one thing to rest immediately: it would be an absolute disaster of Indian foreign policy if India found itself having to fight two major powers
simultaneously. Diplomacy must shape the battlefield to your advantage, and ensuring that India only has to deal with one threat at a time must be the key objective of Indian strategic diplomacy.
China is growing at a rate that has no comparable parallel among India's adversaries. It is developing its weaponry and tools of war at a remarkable pace, and
India must ensure it does not find itself facing both Pakistan and China at the same time. Both competing states have understood that India would prefer to deal with them as separate entities, and they are aware of that vulnerability. This is precisely why Pakistan, every time there has been a conflict with India, has sought to obtain additional pressure from China on India, to compound the difficulty India is already facing.
India, to its credit, is beginning to recognise the implications of this and has responded accordingly. It has repositioned a significant amount of its military
strength from the Pakistan border to the China border. At one point, roughly 70 percent of India's combat capability was arrayed against Pakistan, with only 30
percent facing China. That balance has now shifted to something closer to 45:55, still with a larger array against Pakistan. This rebalancing has not yet made a decisive difference, but it represents a pressure point that India has created, and one that Pakistan has found useful in managing its own internal politics.
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