Army fully prepared to fight full-fledged war: Retd Brigadier

Jammu, Sept. 16: The Indian Army is fully prepared to fight a full-fledged war even in winters in eastern Ladakh and if China created conditions for war, they will face a better trained, better prepared, fully rested and psychologically hardened Indian troops, says Brig (retd) Hemant Mahajan.

The assessment of the retired army officer titled Operational logistic readiness of the Indian Army was contained in a statement circulated to the media by the Army’s Northern Command PRO in Udhampur earlier in the day.

In email messages to the media in the evening, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) said the statement doesn’t represent the views of either Northern Command or Indian Army and that it may be treated as cancelled.

In separate Whatsapp messages, the PRO further stated that the statement was the view of Brig (retd) Hemant Mahajan and it was “wrongly conveyed” as a statement of the Northern Command.

According to Mahajan, compared to the physically and psychologically battlehardened Indian troops, Chinese troops mostly are from urban areas and not used to hardships or prolonged deployment under field conditions.

The comments by the retired officer came against the backdrop of a report by

China’s official media outlet Global Times that India’s operational logistics is not geared up adequately and it will not be able to fight through winters effectively.

This can best be attributed to ignorance. Indian Army is fully prepared and more than capable of fighting a full-fledged war even in winters in eastern Ladakh, Brig (retd) Mahajan said.

India is a peace-loving country and wishes to have good relations with its neighbours. India always prefers to resolve issues through dialogue. While talks are in progress to resolve the border issues with China in eastern Ladakh, at the military level it is well prepared for the prolonged stand-off, he said.

He said altitudes in Ladakh range from high to super-high altitude and there is a lot of snowfall up to 40 feet after November.

Coupled with this, the temperature dipping down to minus 30 to 40 degree Celsius is a usual phenomenon. Wind chill factor makes matters even worse for the troops. The roads also get closed due to the snow. But despite all this, the most encouraging part for India is that the Indian soldiers have a huge experience of winter warfare and are psychologically tuned to operate at short notice, he added.

While these facts are known to the world, he said, adding the operational logistics capabilities, however, are hardly known.