As the gun battle raged on at the Pathankot Air Force Base, the senior (retired) Lt. General couldn’t help but wonder why the Para Special Forces, Para (SF), were not pressed into action. Three battalions of the Para (SF) were available close by and this seemed like an operation tailor-made for them. The ensuing gun fight lasted over 72 hours with the National Security Guard (NSG) and the Garud commandos of the Air Force battling terrorists inside the Air Base. The Lt. General, Prakash Katoch, himself a Para (SF) veteran, understood the intricacies of search and comb, area domination and elimination very well. He was a part of the Para Special Forces fraternity for almost four decades and grew up with the Para (SF) as they acquired the unique skill set of tackling “area targets” and turned into a battle hardened force. In the process, they unlearned a lot of what they were meant to do — force multipliers on steroids to politico-military ends.

Two Indian Army / Special Forces operations seared the national conscience in the recent past. While the raid in Myanmar, in 2015, was greeted with aplomb and the 56" chest first flexed, the big question lingered — would India, could India, pull this off against her Western foe? India answered with “surgical strikes” in late September ’16. Terror launch pads across the LoC were destroyed and Uri stood avenged.

Despite these two iconic operations last year, very little is known about the Special Forces in India. Perhaps one operation, which didn’t deploy the Para (SF) frames the debate around the Special Forces in India, as much as the storied, albeit textbook, “surgical strikes”. While not delving into the history (which is quite easily available on Wikipedia), today the National Identity aims to talk about their identity itself — their mandate, strengths, doctrines governing them and the missions the country actually deploys them on.

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An enigmatic new insignia popped up on a soldier’s uniform a few years ago which sent defence enthusiasts and experts alike into a tizzy. The insignia, worn above the service patches, above the left pocket, belongs to servicemen of the SG — Special Group. Tenanted mostly by men from the Para (SF) battalions of the Indian Army there are also Tibetans and a few Marine Commandos to be found within their ranks.

The insignia of the Special Group (SG)

The Special Group’s two battalions (1200–1500 personnel), are a part of the shadowy Establishment-22 or the Special Frontier Force, SFF, which is under the operational command of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). By virtue of not being under the Ministry of Defence, the SFF, let alone the SG, are seldom discussed in the Parliament. Almost all their missions, to date, are classified. As are their ranks.

A parallel to the Special Group inside the National Security Guards (NSG), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, are the 51st and 52nd Special Action Groups (SAG). These groups are specially trained for counter terrorism and hijacking scenarios, largely in an urban landscape. The SAGs, which make up 54% of the force, are the assault element, tenanted exclusively by personnel of the Indian Army. The remaining personnel form the “holding force”, called the Special Rangers Group. The 52nd SAG successfully executed Operation Ashwamedh in 1993, rescuing 141 passengers from a hijacked plane at Amritsar with 0 casualties. The 51st SAG executed Operation Black Thunder in 1988, at the Golden Temple, the very place which birthed the NSG four years ago.

What sets Special Group (SG) apart is their exclusive use by the intelligence agencies of this country. It is a direction which the US has irreversibly set the world’s clandestine agencies and special forces on. Great, strategic and tactical, operations are now intelligence led. Only the clandestine agencies can provide actionable intelligence on various targets owing to the complex machinations surrounding identification of targets, tapping diplomatic channels, tracing terror financing, coordinating the inter-agency and inter-country support for the attack etc. These missions have to be executed with extreme stealth and by hardened personnel who train for, and execute, similar missions for years; a level of expertise which only the Special Forces can provide. The CIA led — SEAL Team Six executed mission to kill Osama Bin Laden is foremost example of such coordination. This uneasy alliance, yet to be officially enshrined in India, is a result of the threat matrix which most countries now face. This also increasingly places uniformed officers and men of the Indian Army under the operational command of civilian leadership, something the Army is yet to come to terms with.

While it is clear that the proverbial “tip of the spear”, across all the aforementioned forces, is provided by the Army’s Para (SF) battalions, the mandate of these forces is very different. After years of target-specific training, the reflexes of the soldier can’t be un-trained in the few hours it takes for the soldier to be air-dropped to the mission-site. The use, and misuse, of these forces is what frames the debate around the special forces doctrine in this country and their future deployment.