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First, read this short passage of what Bertrand Russell wrote in Chapter 5
entitled ‘Science and War’, his short tract, The Impact of Science on
Society (1952).
da Vinci (1452-1519) and Galileo (1564-1642) – the two brains who set the
tone for the dominance of science in the Western hemisphere – were
contract scientists whose thoughts enriched the military science of their eras.
This trend has continued until now. Enrico Fermi (1901-54) and his
colleagues, who split the atom 60 years ago, were intellectual descendants
of da Vinci and Galileo. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in dabbling with
military science. The downfall of Tamils during the past 500 years in the
Indian subcontinent is due to the fact that Tamils were not encouraged by
external (colonial and missionary) and internal (societal and religious)
forces to think in terms of military science. Pirabhakaran made a change in
Tamil thinking.
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Ceylon had its ceremonial army of course, but the cerebral power of its
ranking leaders was so abysmal that they couldn’t even execute successful
military coup d'état, not once but twice in the 1960s. When Pirabhakaran
came of age in 1972, there were no ranking military thinkers (or defence
analysts in current parlor) in the island to brag about. Here is the history of
the post-independent period’s Sri Lankan army until 1972, as it appears
currently in the Sri Lankan army website:
“The Army Act was enacted in parliament on the 10th of October 1949
which is recognized as the day, the Ceylon Army was raised. The Army
was to be comprised of a Regular and a Volunteer force and the initial
requirement was to raise the following units in the Regular and
Volunteer Forces.
The Regular Force:
An artillery Regiment to guard the coast and the airspace of the
Island.
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Neither Ceylon nor the greater India (encompassing both Pakistan and
Bangladesh) did generate a ranking military leader, of international caliber,
in the past 200 years. I substantiate this statement with the statistic provided
in the reference book, Who’s Who in Military History: from 1453 to the
Present Day, authored by John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft (Routledge,
1996). This source book lists 699 names. Among these, only four Indian
military leaders appear, namely Babur (1483-1530), Akbar (1542-1605),
Sivaji (1627-80) and Tippu Sultan (1749-99). Thus, the last military leader
of rank from the Indian subcontinent, died in 1799.
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Rule 3: Be sure you always have someone up your sleeve who will save
you when you find yourself in deep s…(four-letter word, rhyming with
‘hit’).
Rule 4: Never do anything that bores you. Constantly exposing your ideas
to informed criticism is very important.
Rule 5: If you can’t stand to be with your real peers, get out of science.
It’s very hard to succeed in science if you don’t want to be with other
scientists. You have to go to key meetings where you may spot key facts that
would have escaped you. And you have to chat with your competitors, even
if you find them objectionable.
Of these five rules for success proposed by Watson, from the past 15 years
of Pirabhakaran’s deeds, one could infer that he has adhered to Rules 1, 2, 3
and 4 with conviction. His adherence to Rule 5 is a toss up. Now, I explain
what I mean by these assertions.
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Getting into deep trouble: Pirabhakaran got into deep trouble by deciding
to ‘test’ the skills of his LTTE against the Indian army.
Ten years ago, I wrote an analysis of the LTTE’s war against the Indian army
which appeared in the Tamil Nation monthly (Aug.15, 1991). That was
before the appearance of Internet as an information medium. During the past
5-6 years, the LTTE’s war against the Indian army has been presented in the
Internet from many angles by interested parties. These parties include,
Indian army professionals who directly took part in the war with LTTE, Sri
Lankan army professionals (Major General Lucky Algama, Major General
Sarath Munasinghe for instance) who were mere spectators of this war, and
India’s partisan analysts like Subramanian Swamy, S.D.Muni, N.Ram, as
well as the friends of Indian army. Quite a number of these observations are
biased against the LTTE and obviously made to tarnish Pirabhakaran’s
acumen in leading an army. Thus, there is a need to reproduce my analysis
in entirety to reach the wider audience.
First I present what I thought (in 1991) about the LTTE’s performance
against the Indian army, between October 1987 and March 1989. Then, I
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The performance of the Indian army in Sri Lanka was no better than the
performances of India’s hundreds of athletes who have participated in the
Olympic Games since 1948. Both the athletes and the Indian army men in
Sri Lanka shared one common denominator. They failed to produce, gold,
silver or even bronze-medal winning performances. But the lack luster
performances of India’s athletes and army men have never deterred the
post-mortem specialists in India to offer face-saving excuses, reasons etc. etc.
to hide their agony.
To analyze the performance of the Indian army (I prefer this usage than the
euphemistic, Indian Peace Keeping Force) in Sri Lanka, we first have to
reminisce on how this army fared in the earlier wars it faced since 1947. A
capsule summary of India’s wars, culled from the authoritative book, War in
Peace: Conventional and Guerrilla Warfare since 1945 (edited by Sir
Robert Thompson, 1985) is given below.
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To these three, should be added the Siege of Sikh Golden Temple, which
occurred on June 6, 1984. Casualties: Indian troops, 55 killed. Sikh
militants, 500 plus killed and 1,500 plus captured.
Between October and December 1987 (the first three months of the war),
after a bloody fighting, the Indian forces took military control of the Jaffna
region and the Tamil Tigers retreated to the jungle hideouts in the
Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, Mannar and Trincomalee districts. Yves de Saint
Jabob’s AFP news report from New Delhi published in the Mainichi Daily
News of Japan (27 January 1988) informed that by January 1988, 350
troops had died and that the war against Tamil Tigers was costing India
‘some 4 million dollars a day’. After another 15 months of war, Barbara
Crossette of the New York Times (May 10, 1989) informed the world that,
‘more than 900 Indians have been killed and many thousands wounded’.
And these were the ‘official figures’ released from the Indian side.
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unpredictable ways.
3. his support and rapport from the Tamil masses in the Northern and
Eastern provinces.
Let me expand on these three factors which helped Prabhakaran to fight the
Indian army with confidence.
When fighting a war with an adversary, one has to bring the enemy to your
own terms to manipulate the events thereby turning the disadvantages to
one’s strengths. Imagine, if Mahatmaji had played according to the rules set
by the British high command in London, he would never have won
independence for India. Instead, Mahatmaji set his own rules of combat with
his adversaries and outsmarted the mighty fire power of the British army.
Patronage of MGR
MGR’s patronage was vital for Prabhakaran’s strategy against his Sri Lankan
adversaries and Indian army. During the first three months of the intense
combat against the Indian army, the Tamil Tigers fought valiantly with the
moral support provided by MGR. Regarding MGR’s critical support for
Prabhakaran, one of the reliable Indian journalists, Salamat Ali wrote in the
Far Eastern Economic Review (February 4, 1988) as follows:
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the LTTE should not be totally ignored. In carrying out New Delhi’s
instructions on the militant groups, MGR went far beyond his brief in
the local handling of the LTTE. However, the central government did
not consider it prudent to antagonize MGR over the issue of his special
favours to the LTTE.
When MGR learned that the July 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan peace accord
was nearing completion, he tipped the LTTE which moved most of its
arsenal to secret hideouts in northern Sri Lanka. MGR also told the
LTTE that all militant groups would be disarmed by the Indian Peace-
Keeping Force, so they too hid their arms, which later had to be
searched out by the Indian troops after a prolonged campaign.
Although the LTTE has been engaged in combat with Indian troops
since October, MGR kept his close links with it. His statements on
India’s Sri Lanka policy were deliberately vague enough to yield
differing interpretations by the LTTE and New Delhi. Until MGR’s
death, the LTTE’s speed boats used to hurtle between Tamil Nadu and
Jaffna’s northern coast with impunity almost every night.”
All the parties involved in the Eelam conflict (Tamil Tigers, Sri Lankan and
Indian Tamils, UNP politicians and the Indian decision-makers) were aware
that MGR would not last long following his debilitating stroke in October
1984. But they also did not anticipate the unexpected turn of events in
MGR’s failing health within a couple of days prior to his death on
December 24, 1987. The death of MGR was indeed a major blow to
Prabhakaran.
Angus Deming and Ron Moreau reporting for the Newsweek (October 26,
1987) wrote,
“ …they [Tamil Tigers] may also have lost the battle for the hearts and
minds of Jaffna Tamils, many of whom support the peace accord and
have grown weary of the Tigers’ violent ways. As a result, says one
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Barbara Crossette’s article entitled, ‘If the War has ended, why are so many
dying?’, published in the New York Times of March 9, 1989, told the
continued support Prabhakaran’s rebels enjoyed amongst the Tamils.
The Outcome
Prabhakaran and his rebels had to tackle the Indian army in three phases.
The strength of Tamil Tigers, on paper, amounted to 5,000 plus. Hence the
initial landing of 15,000 Indian soldiers in August 1987. This was based on
the accepted rules of conventional war that the Indian army needed a 3:1
advantage in manpower and equipment to take on a garrison in prepared
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positions. Then the agony of the Indian military tacticians became evident
when they had to bring reinforcement in excess of 100,000 men. Even this
proved futile.
In the final analysis, the Indian army was outwitted and out-fought by
Prabhakaran’s Tigers. Who will disagree with the comments of one Theepan,
a Tamil Tiger field commander:
“We are elated to fight the Indians; the whole world admired us for
the fight we have given the world’s fourth largest armed forces?”
(Time: Dec.19, 1988).
The British weekly Economist harbors no love for the Tamil Tigers. It’s Sri
Lankan correspondent always reports with contempt about the mission on
which Prabhakaran has embarked. However, on the first anniversary of the
LTTE-Indian war, the Economist (October 22, 1988) came to its senses and
presented a somewhat accurate appraisal of the result. Otherwise it would
have lost it’s credibility as a critical commentator of contemporary events.
The title of the story was, ‘Rajiv gets lost on a Tiger hunt’. Some excerpts
are worth recording for the benefit of those who have not read it.
“More than 500 of its [India’s] 50,000 soldiers have been killed,
almost all of them by the Tamil Tiger guerrillas. Three times that
number have been wounded… And there is the incalculable damage to
the army’s pride from its failure, despite more than a year of effort and
a vast superiority of arms, to subdue the Tigers…The Tigers have lost
some 350 men since the fighting resumed in earnest last October, and
now have around 2,000 in the field…
Tigers are not alone in believing that one day they will get their Tamil
Eelam. Some of the Indian officers fighting them believe so too. They
have experienced the Tigers’ tenacity in battle and have interrogated
Tiger prisoners. They reckon the guerrillas could go on fighting
indefinitely.”
“Even those who do not accept that bleak view now suspect that the
Tigers cannot simply be wiped out, as it was once thought they could
be. If the Indians cannot do it, the Sri Lankan army, which is half the
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In recent decades (if not centuries), no military general from Sri Lanka had
the courage to take on the might of an Indian army. But Prabhakaran took
the challenge in a most daring manner and had surprised many of his critics.
The Time magazine (April 3, 1989; Asian edition) had written the
non-partisan verdict of this war. In its cover story on ‘Super India: The next
military power’, there appeared a box-feature, with the caption, ‘Sri Lanka:
Case Study of a Disaster’. The last three sentences of the analysis read:
“Some 800 Indian soldiers have died at the hands of the Tigers. India
still has 100,000 troops and paramilitary forces committed to the Sri
Lanka operation, yet it has failed to put down the guerrillas. The
simmering conflict may not be India’s Viet Nam, but it provides the
lesson for New Delhi that even an emerging superpower must recognize
its limits.”
Almost a year later, when India withdrew the last of its troops from Sri
Lanka on March 24, 1990, Barbara Crossette of the New York Times openly
acknowledged the LTTE’s victory over the Indian Army (March 25, 1990).
She wrote,
“The defeat of New Delhi’s policy is now complete. Not only has India
lost the battle with the Tamil Tigers, at the cost of about 1,200 Indian
lives, but it has also lost any hope of direct influence over the Sri
Lankan northeast, particularly the strategic port of Trincomalee, whom
an Indian-installed provincial government, intended to blunt the
Tigers’ political potential, collapsed this month.”
So, in the final verdict, of the three phases which consisted the Indo-LTTE
war (1987-90), the LTTE won the two phases (guerrilla campaign and the
popular support for political campaign) after back-tracking in the first phase
(open warfare). It was the longest war the Indian army has fought since
India’s independence. However, the Tamils cannot feel happy about the
victory, since it has been achieved at too great cost. The tragedy of the
Indo-LTTE war summed up in statistics (only a partial one) should read as
follows:
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Thus ended my 1991 analysis on LTTE’s war against the Indian army. In
sum, I would like to reiterate that, I identified three factors which were
important for Pirabhakaran and LTTE’s survival against the Indian army’s
campaign. These were, Pirabhakaran’s innate intelligence, patronage of
MGR, and the mass support from the Eelam Tamil population residing in
the North and East of the island. To my satisfaction, J.N.Dixit (Indian High
Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 1985 to 1989), who was one of the chief
Indian protagonists in charge of organizing the Indian army’s campaign, also
confirmed the significance of all three factors in his memoirs, Assignment
Colombo, in 1998. Though I stated in 1991 that the number of Tamil
civilians dead was 5,000 plus, subsequent research shows that this figure
need to be upwardly revised to 6,000 plus.
J.N.Dixit’s Assessment
Among a dozen of books which have appeared describing the Indo-Sri
Lankan affairs of the 1980s, Dixit’s book stands out prominently for more
than one reason. First, it appeared in 1998, after the deaths of many of the
prominent players of that period. These include (in chronological order of
death), MGR, Amirthalingam, Uma Maheswaran, Rohana Wijeweera,
Ranjan Wijeratne, Rajiv Gandhi, Athulathmudali, Premadasa, Gamini
Dissanayake and J.R.Jayewardene. Secondly, Dixit’s rank as one of the main
protagonists of that era as well as his frankness in penning the political
motives of such dead political players provide gravitas to his book, which
are not found in other books authored by academics and analysts. Of course,
Dixit’s book has its spins and fakes; it has its serious omissions, the most
glaring one being the non-mention of civilian causalities in Eelam during the
Indian army’s offensives; it has its minor factual errors; and it also has its
garnish of ‘We did the best thing – We did the right thing’ bombast. Despite
these limitations, Dixit did not mince his words, in describing Pirabhakaran’s
blessings. He has noted the talent of Pirabhakaran – the leading military
scientist of Tamils – as follows:
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I wish to stress this fact that, Pirabhakaran was blessed in having a great and
powerful patron in MGR between 1983 and 1987, which satisfied Watson’s
rule no.3 for success in science, which in case of Pirabhakaran was military
science. Though LTTE has survived for 14 years since MGR’s death, many
of its road-blocks in the Indian political arena has to be attributed to the
lack of having a powerful patron in the mold of MGR. (Continued).
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