NEW DELHI – The Indian Army and the Central government have come to oddsover the issue of troops merger and deployment issue at the borders.
Indian Army has opposed the home ministry’s proposal to create a 29battalion Indo-Myanmar Border force by merging four battalions of theIndo-Tibetan Border Policelink>(ITBP)with 25 battalions of Assam Rifles (AR), saying that it is instead ready toconsider merging 46 battalions of AR with the regular army for deploymentin the eastern Ladakh sector.
It has recommended that the 58 battalion ITBP should be deployed on India’snorth-east borders instead of its current deployment on the Line of ActualControl (LAC).
Senior home ministry and Army officials told HT that it has now boiled downto whether AR should operate under the ministry of home affairs and beregarded as a paramilitary force or under the ministry of defence as partof the regular army.
As things stand, AR is under the home ministry but its battalions arecommanded by Army officers on deputation. The force is headed by aLieutenant General. The Assam Rifles was deployed with the Army in the 1962India-China border war and in Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka. The force wasraised in 1835 and has been involved in counter-insurgency duties andborder management in the north-east since then.
Countering the merger proposal of home ministry, the Army brass has made itclear that it would rather have all AR battalions deployed with the army inthe Eastern Ladakh sector to man the LAC with China than have army officersserve under paramilitary commanders. “The decision that needs to be takenis whether AR continues to function with the home ministry or istransferred to the defence ministry,” said a senior North Block official.
The army brass has conveyed to the home ministry that while it is ready todeploy AR in Ladakh, ITBP should be removed from this sector and beredeployed on the India-Myanmar border.
This will remove inter-force friction on the China border as ITBP does notcome under operational control of the Army. Given the sensitivity of theChina border, any miscommunication of rivalry between the local armycommander and the ITBP commander could create a situation with the People’sLiberation Army (PLA).