Page 353 - Leadership in the Indian Army

An amusing sidelight was Hanut’s strong belief that a married officer could
not devote himself whole-heartedly to his profession, as his family would
demand some of his time and attention. He himself was a bachelor, and

encouraged others to follow his example. As a result, the Poona Horse had a
fair number of rather senior bachelors. This added great zest to mess life,
but also caused considerable anxiety and consternation to the other officers’
parents, who naturally blamed Hanut for the continued refusal of their sons
to enter into matrimony.
Hanut devoted his spare time to spiritual pursuits, and to his favourite
hobby of reading. He had an abiding love for books, and read extensively

on a wide variety of subjects. But what he loved to read most was spiritual
literature and the biographies of great men, particularly the great ‘Captains
of War’. He found socialising, and the meaningless small talk that goes with
it, painfully boring. He liked nothing better than to be left alone with a good
book. In the extroverted army environment, this was considered odd and he
was soon dubbed as being anti-social. But Hanut couldn’t care less, and was

quite happy as long as he was left to himself and his books.
In the mid-1950s, the Poona Horse was issued with Centurion tanks. In
1958, Hanut, who was then a young Captain, was selected to attend a
Centurion tank gunnery course in the United Kingdom, for which he was
awarded a ‘distinction’. On his return, he was appointed a gunnery
instructor at the Armoured Corps Centre and School, Ahmednagar, in May
1959. There, he rewrote the General Staff pamphlet on the ‘Technique of

Shooting from Armoured Fighting Vehicles’. He also introduced revised
techniques of shooting and new tank gunnery training methods, and
prepared precis for disseminating instructions on these subjects. These
techniques continued to be the bedrock of gunnery training in the Armoured
Corps for as long as the Centurions were in service, and enabled them to
outshoot the Pakistani pattons and establish their supremacy on the

battlefield during the Indo–Pak wars of 1965 and 1971.
When Hanut joined the Armoured Corps, there was no tactical doctrine
available on armour, nor were there any publications on armour tactics at
unit level. The tactics that were taught at the Armoured Corps Centre and
School were basically Infantry-oriented, based on precis issued by the
Infantry School in Mhow. Hanut felt that armour must have its own tactical
doctrine, based on the principles of mobile warfare. So he decided to evolve

such a doctrine and, based on that, develop unit-level tactics for armoured