New Delhi: We have used Air Force firepower with telling, if not decisive, effect in the past, in serious insurgency situations bordering on armed revolt/ secession, in the ’60s, in a part of our country. It is nothing new. Those decisions must have been hard to take and painful to arrive at, at the highest political levels; what perhaps helped was that, after a certain stage, it was largely the Army, and not the CPF, which was doing the bulk of the fighting on the ground; the scenarios had turned into a quasi-war one and time was fast running out.

Once the decisions were taken, the go-aheads given and the overall guidelines spelt out clearly by govt, the Air Force & the Army were left pretty much alone to do their own joint planning, prioritizing and execution. They used the AF fire power most astutely, judiciously, conservatively and correctly to avoid collateral damage beyond a point, mindless mayhem and wanton destruction of civilian life and property. I state this from first-hand experience, observation and knowledge.

Air Mshls Trevor Osman, Anil Trikha, ‘Mian’ Naqvi, AVMs ‘Goofy’ Gupta, ‘Guni’ Sehgal etc will bear me out on that.

Not using the Air Force fire power when and in the manner in which it was used at the time, would, to my mind, have been disastrous for the nation. Merely using it in the logistics, communication, transportation of men & materiel, surveillance, air maintenance and casualty evacuation roles wasn’t getting us the needed dividends. As it was revealed once peace and order were restored to those troubled areas later on, aerial firepower could not have been used more opportunely and appropriately; it, along with the Army ground action, possibly pulled a lot of political chestnuts out of the fire just in time, shortened the conflict very considerably and nipped in the bud what would have turned into a serious challenge to India’s integrity! I’d like to believe that it also served as a major and punishing lesson to the then and future separatists, without and most importantly, estranging the populace.