Locked and loaded

The induction of tanks and other heavy equipment by the Indian Army has brought about parity on the disputed border. China now wants to reassert its supremacy

- PRADIP R. SAGAR AND NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

On September 16, 2019, the Indian Army’s Northern Command tweeted photos of its chief, Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, sitting atop a T-90 tank and watching the “integrated exercise of all arms” in “super high altitude area” in Pangong, Ladakh. To most people, it appeared to be another ‘PR photo’.

It was not. The photo changed the military-tactical picture of Ladakh, literally! It announced to the world that India was now capable of deploying tanks on the mountains of Ladakh.

Ladakh and thereabouts on the Himalayas had always been infantry country. Tankmen have rarely ventured onto the mountains. In the 1947-48 war with Pakistan, the dashing General Thimayya took a few across the Zoji La; tanks were tried to be put to battle in 1962; and a pilot programme to deploy them in Ladakh in the 1990s was given up.

Ladakh, thus, had always been the foot soldier’s domain. On the other hand, the Indian Army knew that the Chinese could bring tanks and artillery down the Lhasa-Xinjiang G219 Highway and drive them down the newly-built subroads towards several parts of Ladakh, especially in Chushul and Demchok. In other words, the Chinese had the armour advantage. India had been hamstrung by the fact that its undeveloped roads could not take tanks and most of the rivers on its side were unbridged.