India's Wars

A Military History (1947-1971)

By: Arjun Subramaniam

Narrated by: Surjan Singh

India's armed forces play a key role in protecting the country and occupy a special place in the Indian people's hearts, yet standard accounts of contemporary Indian history rarely have a military dimension. In India's Wars, serving Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam seeks to rectify that oversight by giving India's military exploits their rightful place in history.

Subramaniam begins India's Wars with a frank call to reinvigorate the study of military history as part of Indian history more generally. Part II surveys the development of the India's army, navy, and air force from the early years of the modern era to 1971. In Parts III and IV, Subramaniam considers conflicts from 1947 to 1962 as well as conflicts with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. Part V concludes by assessing these conflicts through the lens of India's ancient strategist, Kautilya, who is revered in India as much as Sun Tzu is in China.

Not merely a wide-ranging historical narrative of India's military performance in battle, India's Wars also offers a strategic, operational and human perspective on the wars fought by independent India's armed forces. Subramaniam highlights possible ways to improve the synergy between the three services and argues in favor of the declassification of historical material pertaining to national security. The author also examines the overall state of civil-military relations in India, leadership within the Indian armed forces as well as training, capability building and other vitally important issues of concern to citizens, the government and the armed forces. This objective and critical analysis provides policy cues for the reinvigoration of the armed forces as a critical tool of statecraft and diplomacy.

Listeners will come away from India's Wars with a greater understanding of the international environment of war and conflict in modern India. Laced with veterans' intense experiences in combat operations and deeply researched and passionately written, it unfolds with surprising ease and offers a fresh perspective on independent India's history.

©2016 Arjun Subramaniam (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Refreshing view of military history of India

A lot of research done by author and a very interesting summarization of '47 '65 and '71 wars. Interesting view points of major events and a few major what-ifs thru the book but all with a very realist viewpoint. A must read for people well versed on the topic of military history as well as people who are just starting to discover more about the topic.

Good history but could have had more battle details

Learned a lot from this book and would recommend it could had done with more battle details...recommended

very slow introduction

Had to give up due to the continual shout outs to various units. branches and regiments that I had not heard of.

Excellent and much needed

I really enjoyed listening to this book, learned a lot about Indian armed forces and the conflicts they were involved in. Great performance by the narrator.

Couldn’t get past chapter 3

I got to chapter 3 and couldn’t take it anymore. All of the content till that point could’ve been covered in a couple of sentences. Lot of repetition and banalities. It’s possible that the remainder of the book is not that bad but I didn’t want to take that chance.
Narration was okay but one thing that really irritated me was, for example, 1962 was read as nineteen *hundred and* sixty two instead of the more concise nineteen sixty two.
It was not easy for me to let this book go because of the very interesting subject but poorly written. Again I only got to the third chapter.