Maj Gen Rajiv Narayanan (Retd.) former ADG, Military Operations & Visiting Fellow, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi speaks with Col Anil Bhat (Retd.) on India’s Op Sindoor and what it achieved | SAM Conversation - video Dailymotion

South Asia Monitor

Maj Gen Rajiv Narayanan (Retd.) former ADG, Military Operations & Visiting Fellow, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi speaks with Col Anil Bhat (Retd.) on India’s Op Sindoor and what it achieved | SAM Conversation

Transcript

00:00Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor. It is a pleasure to welcome

00:18Major General Rajiv Narayanan, former Additional Director General, Military Operations, visiting

00:26fellow, Center for Land Warfare Studies, and now a professor of practice at Aerospace

00:36Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Welcome General Narayanan.

00:47It is also a pleasure to, he is from, he represents two regiments of the Amarkot, Poonahoss, and

00:58the 16th Cavalry. But what we are going to hear from him is an elaboration of what transpired

01:16from 7th of May till 11th at least, and of course the after-effects of which have not

01:29yet stopped. Following the horrendous 22nd April 2021 attack on innocent Indian tourists,

01:40including one Nepalian, another Punean, all mails by Pakistani terrorists in a most cold-blooded

01:48manner after making them strip to ascertain their religion, that they are Hindu. And the

01:58reaction all over India was unprecedentedly of not just shock but overwhelming anger too.

02:09We remember seeing many visuals of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the three ministers, Home

02:18Minister Mr. Shah, Defence Minister Mr. Arjunath Singh, and External Affairs Minister Mr. Jai

02:26Shankar, and the Chief of Defence Staff, the three Service Chiefs, and the National Security

02:34Advisor Mr. Ajit Daul. And I think what, we don't know how many sittings they had, I think

02:42over 30 to 40. But what emerged as the very, very emotionally named Operation Sindhu began is worth

02:58knowing. And when I say worth knowing, the knowing of it was not easy. It came with a lot of fake

03:08news, propaganda, and what have you. It is indeed heartening, it was heartening to hear Mr. General

03:21Rajiv Narayanan come out with a few, not a few, I think a number of very interesting details about

03:29Operation Sindhu. First question I have, is the figure of aircraft, air bases destroyed, it was

03:4611. But of late, since I think yesterday, the Defence Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh has been quoting

03:56the figure 13. Anyway, if it's 13, well I'll say all the better. That's the first question. If you

04:08briefly throw some light on it, please. Yes, because he is not wrong when he says we have

04:15addressed 13 bases. On the, I would say 8th, 9th night, we had targeted two bases. Apart from

04:26targeting the places from where the drones were being flown and the UAVs being flown, two bases

04:33were targeted. And on the night of 9th, 10th was when the massive attacks went on 11 bases. So,

04:4311 into 13. People tend to forget that apart from this 11, there were attacks earlier also.

04:49Those attacks were essentially the attacks on, I would say 8th, 9th, 7th, 8th and 8th, 9th were

04:59meant to create holes in his air defence network. So, along with that, on 8th, 9th night, you had

05:09addressed two air bases. Then after that, since the air defence had been suppressed to a large

05:15extent, you had jammed and then you went all over. How effective was the Indian aerial offensive?

05:28Very effective, sir. There was a lot of information warfare and fake news,

05:33five Rafales down, two Rafales down, this happened, they also attacked. But

05:40while New York Times put something else in their headlines, when you read the full report,

05:49Indian attacks were supported by open source satellite imagery of the extent of damage that

05:57had been done. Precise damage with precision which what I found was about a meter or less

06:05was the circular error of probability using NAVIC. Pak was PowerPoint.

06:15NAVIC is India's? India's. IRNSS. What Pak was telling that we have done was on PowerPoint.

06:22Just elaborate the words. Navigation Indian Complex, it is NAVIC and it is based on Indian

06:32Regional Navigation Satellite System, IRNSS. The tight footprint of, though the claim is less than

06:4120 meters, it is one meter which was found is in the Indo-Pacific regions. And the footprint

06:50beyond that which gives around 20 meters or little more,

06:54covers the whole of Asia and portions of complete Mediterranean and some portions of Europe.

07:02And the rationale for creating this IRNSS came about during the

07:11Kargil War, where the Americans denied us the use of GPS.

07:19So, complete what was done when Israel gave us those spikes to convert the

07:26dumb bombs into precision, the precision was given through GLONASS and INS. There was no GPS.

07:35That was when it was felt that we need to have our own. It took a while and the initial

07:43briefing started in 2013. I was in chair at that time and it carried on. And today,

07:51it has reached where it is. We used to have almost every quarter a meeting with ISRO,

07:56Deputy NSA, Army, Navy, Air Force, we all sit together, even DRDO was there.

08:03And you can see what it has produced. Every airbase was targeted. Apart from that,

08:16there were some cantonments also targeted where his nuclear, the land-based nuclear

08:22assets were, the missiles. So, which are essentially Gujranwala and Sargodha that

08:28were targeted. Apart from Sargodha airfield, you targeted the garrison where his missile was

08:33located, telling him that we know where you are. So, he has five. We didn't target Pano, Akhil,

08:40Khuzdar, Arco. Air bases where he has air assets, which is basically Mirage 3 and 5 and

08:48JF-17 and F-16 if the Americans permit them. These are based in Kamra, Rafiki, Jacobabad and Masroor.

08:56So, Rafiki, Jacobabad and Masroor were targeted. Then his strategic reserve for his nuclear assets

09:04are kept in Kirana and Chagai hills. Kirana is next to Sargodha and Chagai is next to

09:10Jacobabad. The government will not say it because you didn't target the

09:15nuclear warheads per se. So, they are deep underground in tunnels.

09:21If I may please just, if the government may not have said it, but am I right in saying that

09:28very sort of subtly it has got accepted? A smile tells everything. And the Pakistanis openly said

09:36that they just hit the hill precisely. But that's where the entry exit points are. If you cannot hit

09:43the tunnel, the best is to destroy the entry and exit point and that's what we did. Both in Chagai

09:51and Kirana. Now, there appears to have been some nuclear cook-off inside, radiological cook-off,

09:58not a nuclear explosion. Chagai, this was between about 1.44 and 2 am on early morning on 10th.

10:09Now, the American National Seismic Center registered a seismic activity equivalent to

10:185.7 on the Richter scale at Chagai and 4.4 in Kirana and later during the day of the 10th,

10:27another 4 in Kirana. A 5.7 must have collapsed the entrances completely and sealed that inside.

10:35So, there was no leakage that was mentioned, which came out from Chagai Hills area. But there

10:41were reports of leakage from Kirana. I am not talking of the fake letter which was in circulation.

10:48You see, just to kill a narrative, you pull out a fake sort of a letter and then kill the narrative

10:53that letter is fake. No, it's not the letter. In X, I received videos from the ground,

11:02where you couldn't see who was talking, but the villagers were being asked to move out from the

11:09villages next to Kirana. And the voice is telling there is radiation here and the villager is asking

11:14what is radiation? He doesn't know. He doesn't understand. If I'm not mistaken at Chagai,

11:22there is a bus stand where it says bum factory, bum factory. Maybe, but that is also their

11:30test site. Chagai is also their test site. Also their test site, you are right, you are right.

11:37Now, and it's in Balochistan. Now, in Kirana, these people were told, no, there is some problem,

11:47you will have an issue. So, you come away, we will sort that problem out and you can come back.

11:53That is what I got. And of course, the American power and energy aircraft, which they claim that

12:02no, no, we gave it to Pakistan. Well, if they gave it to Pakistan, it didn't fly from Pakistan.

12:07It flew from Central Command. So, if it was given to Pakistan, how was it in Central Command?

12:13It flew over these areas and landed at Rawalpindi. Then there is an Egypt Air aircraft,

12:20which flew towards China and then entered Pakistan via China and landed at Rawalpindi.

12:28It was told that it is carrying boron from the Nile Delta. Now, when you have a radiological

12:37event, the maximum threat is from neutron release, not from alpha, beta and gamma.

12:46The ideal absorbent for neutron is boron. So, you can make a shield by impregnating it in

12:54polyurethane or polycarbonate and then placing it there. Now, the next people who say no,

13:01no, it didn't happen. They claim that IAEA mentioned there is no leak. I would say just

13:08excuse me, IAEA doesn't look at military sites. The only site they are responsible for is civilian.

13:15Atomic energy.

13:21Firstly, they made it three days late. Secondly, they have to answer the question what we're doing

13:26in a military site. You're not supposed to oversee the military site. So, what are you

13:31talking about a military site? Kirana Hills or Chagai is not a civil site. Civil sites we know

13:40are Kauta and Karachi, you should have been there. So, there is no nuclear leak from there. Of

13:45course, there is no nuclear leak from there. If there was a radiation leak, I'm sure by three

13:51days they would have contained it using boron. And then when you make a statement, no, there is

13:56no nuclear leak. Yes. Then we come to that same point which we were saying that people would not

14:04state. It becomes a little, I would say, a diplomatic issue to say I targeted a nuclear

14:11facility. So, he's right when Air Marshal Bharti says that we didn't target any nuclear sites. Of

14:21course, you didn't. You hit the entrances. The entrance to a tunnel has nothing to do with the

14:28nuclear site where the nuclear warheads are way below the surface in tunnels.

14:33And here, if I may please just intervene,

14:39when we say that we are trying to disable airports so that

14:49our aim is to ensure that their aircraft can't take off, that's the lead.

14:55Now, the other issue about their air force is they were so scared of the S-400 after day one,

15:02they never came closer than about 100-120 kilometres from the border.

15:08Now, let us come to the claims. No, what I meant is that is it,

15:14one hasn't gone into, you know, where exactly or how nuclear weapons should be kept or,

15:22but are they kept, you know, sort of in airports or air bases?

15:29Not exactly in the airports, sir. Now, let us say like Gujaratwala, Sargodha, Pano, Akhil,

15:35Arco and Khuzdar are their known land bases from where they fire their missiles. So, somewhere

15:42close by in an underground tunnel shelter, they would have kept the nuclear warheads for immediate,

15:48to be able to mate it immediately. He is not going to wait for it to come from Kirana.

15:55Same is the case with the air bases. The four air bases that is Kamra, Rafiki, Jacobabad and

16:01Masroor, somewhere close by he would have created that underground facility where he would have

16:07kept the nuclear warheads so that it can be mated to the missiles which are being fired from air.

16:14So, that would be close by. But when you target them precisely, their command and

16:18control centre and facilities, you are telling, buddy, I know where you are.

16:24So, be careful and the precision of targeting would have scared. So, basically, like we spoke

16:31about IAEA, sir, IAEA essentially oversees civilian nuclear facilities. It has no role to play at all

16:40on any military facility. For them coming to make a statement after three days itself is surprising

16:45for which they should answer. Why did they make a statement on a nuclear facility? That is point

16:50number one. Point number two, they came after three days. What were they doing on the morning

16:55of 10th when there was so much reporting going on from Pakistan on the ground that they have

17:00this problem? So, maybe the people with Buran, they had been able to control the leak and then

17:11thereafter you say that there is nothing. What scared Pakistan further? Noor Khan Air Base is

17:17the nuclear command and control operational centre which is where Asim Munir had run away

17:23into the moment the air attack started. You destroyed that.

17:30Yesterday morning, the PM has confirmed that their Sipa Salar rang up that BrahMos missile has hit

17:39them. So, one by one things are coming out and that is when they got so scared that they ran.

17:47What the Chinese are angry at, they ran to the Americans to talk to India. And finally,

17:55the DGMO spoke to our DGMO and we said five and we never used the word ceasefire. It was

18:03stopping of firing and stopping all air, ground and naval act hostilities

18:12and that was to be reviewed on 12th. Which amounts to a break, a break literally.

18:18Or like we call it as a tactical pause. Because you didn't trust them and sure enough,

18:24Trump went to town saying I had got done the ceasefire and they said it at five

18:31and by seven o'clock they had started with the drone attacks again.

18:34Yes, yes.

18:36Now, the air defence system became very, very, very effective. Only two, I would say,

18:4580% of the equipment which was used, more than 80% all Indian origin.

18:53The air defence command and control and communication system completely…

18:57Indian origin and you can use the term Atmanirbhar.

19:01Atmanirbhar. Then the air defence command and control system, everything Atmanirbhar. Nothing

19:10from outside, all hardware, software, everything from inside. Then all the legacy systems like

19:17they had the Pichora, USAEK, our own L70 guns, the Zeus towed twin guns and the Shilka quads

19:27that is four barrelled, 23 mm. All upgraded, modernised and made radar connected. Shilka

19:35was already radar connected. L70 and Zeus were optical, the operator sees it. Again,

19:42controlled by radar, AI enabled and you knocked that off. You didn't need to use S4, like people

19:50were talking S400 dropped drones, excuse me, S400 dropped their missiles. It is these legacy

19:58systems upgraded and mostly the guns which dropped the drones, $500 versus $20,000.

20:05Yeah. Some jamming also.

20:10Yes, yes, I am coming to that. Now, you also used, this is kinetic, you also used completely

20:18all the anti-drone systems, kinetic, non-kinetic, which were there are homegrown. Kinetic in the

20:25sense laser, non-kinetic is getting hold of them, their communication systems, jamming them. And

20:33most of these drones which reports are coming out were so useless that moment you jam them,

20:39it just circled and fell down there. Now, compare that to the Iron Dome. We are using

20:48missiles, costly missiles to knock off these drones. You didn't waste in that. In the first

20:54day itself, they lost two JF-17s which they were trying to pass off Rafales, one in Akhnur, one

21:01outside Bhatinda. On the 7th evening in the briefing, the DGISPR accepted for the loss of two

21:12F-17s that day.

21:13And just imagine, we had a whole lot of foreign agencies and ironically, Indian agencies, media

21:25agencies also, who are, you know, readily carrying on with this fake news, propaganda, you know, lies.

21:37Well, it changed because the very same...

21:45People should have seen the Sky TV. The defence minister was waffling on Sky TV when the lady

21:52anchor asked him that you're saying so many down, so many down. What is your proof? Can you believe

22:00it? Laughable. He says proof is social media. Defence minister saying social media. It is

22:08laughable. And yes, people, the West was also very anti the Rafale because you're going in for more

22:16Rafale. And they were worried that they will lose the arms market. So, the arms lobby of the West

22:22was also in place. The arms lobby of the Chinese were also in place. Initially, people were saying

22:28there is some truth in it, because the share prices have gone down. But then as the truth

22:33came out, Dassault Aviation prices started going up. And the Chinese aviation prices started

22:40collapsing. So, the air operation was so effective that it really scared them. And that is why the

22:51PM has openly said so that the nuclear bluff won't work. You know, one has been writing so often

23:05that we need to do much more when we are fighting this disproportionate battle of, you know,

23:15a few terrorists, four or five or three or four or five come and almost a battalion gets, you know,

23:25deployed or activated. We need some, you know, in 2016, what we call the surgical strikes,

23:38they were very, very well coordinated, very well implemented. And so was that airstrike in 2019

23:48at Balakot. This time, I think what we did was the equivalent of counting that now there are 13,

23:5613 airbases, 22 Balakots. It's like doing... Yes, sir. If I may, sir, by 2016 and 2019,

24:08we hadn't stitched together all these things in place that we have today.

24:14I'm not saying it is complete. Yes, I'm sure they would have looking at the lessons

24:18learned and what gaps they are and what more to improve upon. But this time, you had the

24:26potency and the capability to tell the West there is nothing called strategic restraint now.

24:31No, that restraint was ridiculous. That restraint was ridiculous. We had acts of war,

24:39acts of war, you know, in hundreds, hundreds, thousands in the last 30 years.

24:47But now the whole analogy has changed. Everything has changed. And suddenly,

24:56what has happened is like, you also know, so there are three levels of war. There is sub-conventional,

25:00conventional and when your nuclear powers fighting, then you go nuclear. Pakistan was

25:06always looking to shift the envelope of the sub-conventional upward through nuclear blackmail,

25:14so that the window of convention is very less because he always knew that he couldn't

25:18take you on in conventional. And with the nuclear saber rattling, when you went conventional that

25:23the world would get after you to come for a ceasefire. And he can go tom-tomming around

25:29the world that I have achieved a stalemate, so I have won. But unfortunately of late,

25:35what has happened, sir, they have shifted towards the Quranic concept of war.

25:40Now, in that, even a physical defeat is not considered a defeat if the ideological still

25:46stays. The ideology is still there, then you take it as a victory that our ideology still remains.

25:53So, you have been defeated thoroughly, but the ideology is still there. So, you say that I have

25:58won because my ideology has not been defeated. You have not killed my ideology, so I have won.

26:04I have won. And that is what is going on. And slowly, slowly, they are also telling and people,

26:10I am getting the videos from across, where they say that everything is gone, what are they

26:16celebrating for? And one of the videos was quite shocking, which underlies what the Prime Minister

26:24had said, that there is no difference between state and non-state actors. In Muridke, this was

26:29a shot from Muridke, where that training centre in the Masjid was hit. Right next to that is an

26:37administrative block. And it says, government of Pakistan administrative block. And this is

26:46within the complex of the LET in Muridke. How can you say that the government is different and the

26:54terrorist is different? We saw that in the photograph, when Asad Rao is standing for the

27:03Janaza prayers for all those people who had died. You had a Lieutenant General and other

27:09army officers standing behind. A proscribed terrorist is leading the prayers and all their

27:16coffins were covered with Pakistan's flag. Flag. Can it be more telling? No, that even Musharraf,

27:24in his time, there are visual records of, he is doing the same. Now, the number two,

27:32who is the DG ISPR? He is the son of a proscribed terrorist. He tried to sell, he was affiliated

27:40with Obama and he was wanting to sell nuclear technology to him. He was part of the Pakistan

27:47nuclear atomic energy facilities. Proscribed terrorist, not just proscribed by UN,

27:56US, UK and others also, even Pakistan has proscribed him. His son is a Lieutenant General

28:02as DG ISPR. Great. So, it is just the change of dress, otherwise the people are the same.

28:10One is in uniform, one is in Pathan suit. No, no. For Kargil, they raised

28:2013, I think at least 13 battalions of the Northern Light Infantry.

28:25Which were all of non, essentially non-Sunnis. There were some Sunnis, but very few.

28:32And Shias and all, you know, tribes of the Baltistan, that region,

28:41which were ideal as cannon fodder. And were treated as cannon fodder.

28:46I was operating in the Dras sector, 16 Cav was there. We were providing the

28:51firm base for the attacks on Tololing and Tiger Hill. They didn't accept the bodies.

28:56They didn't accept the bodies. And later on, when bodies did get accepted,

29:03their last rites were done in darkness.

29:11Anyway, would you like to, anything that you think you may have missed out in,

29:17you know, in the backup of Indian things? Would you like to mention ISRO?

29:26Sir, the complete NAVIC is based on ISRO. 10 satellites. 10 satellites are still there,

29:36up there. And that is how it is. So, the world is worried because they all accept the US and

29:42the West that the two most effective space agencies is one is NASA, the other is ISRO.

29:51NASA has a whole lot of Indian scientists working there. ISRO has no Americans working here.

29:59So, they are worried if those Indians move out of NASA and come into ISRO, NASA will collapse.

30:05Well, Narendra, thank you. Very well brought out. Very well brought out. And thank you.

30:13Thank you, sir.

30:14We are a little strapped for time. Otherwise, you know,

30:17but there's enough that you've given us to feel proud. Thank you. Jai Hind.

30:24Jai Hind, sir.

Maj Gen Rajiv Narayanan (Retd.) former ADG, Military Operations & Visiting Fellow, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi speaks with Col Anil Bhat (Retd.) on India’s Op Sindoor and what it achieved | SAM Conversation

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