D.K. Palit > Quotes

“Alone of all the civilizations that reach back into antiquity, it was the Indo-Aryan that early in its history formalized and accorded a lustrous role in society to the warrior caste, a group solely devoted to the profession of arms.”
― D.K. Palit, War in High Himalaya: The Indian Army in Crisis, 1962

“The retarded development of Indian generalship after independence cannot be entirely explained away by the lack of experience of senior Indian officers. There have been other breakaway armies in history, but in none has there been such a marked reluctance either to evolve an empirical, indigenous philosophy of warfare or to introduce orthodox precepts of military science. No zeal or momentum appears to have impelled the officers left over from the Raj. Clearly the seniors among them preferred to perpetuate British affectations of amateurism; their criteria for generalship were confined to a flair for leadership and battlefield panache. Nor did they encourage their juniors to acquire professional knowledge. On the contrary, officers who studied or wrote about professional subjects were dubbed ‘theoretical’ – as though theory were something that must be avoided in the pursuit of practice.”
― D.K. Palit, War in High Himalaya: The Indian Army in Crisis, 1962