A military force with sharp internal
divisions and discontent in the ranks has far-reaching national security
implications. It’s time the defence establishment got its act together. The ‘controversial’ appointment of the
new Indian Army chief who assumed office on January 1, 2017 is
perhaps the appropriate occasion to discuss the rising uneasiness within the Indian
Army on a number of significant issues. While the unconvincing rationale given
for the appointment of Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat as the new Army chief speaks
volumes of the deep-rooted tactical thinking within the government, there
remains an urgent need to address the lopsided promotion trends in the Army,
rising infighting within the force, and their implications for India’s national
security.
The
supersession and the issue of merit
Those who support Gen. Rawat’s appointment arguing
that merit was, and should be, the sole criterion for the supersession of two
of his seniors fall short on a number of counts. First, to breach a
well-established tradition in a conservative and hierarchical institution like
the Army, the government should have a convincing and compelling reason which
it doesn’t seem to have. Second, the argument of merit is largely redundant at
the topmost levels of an organisation where all officers are equally competent,
failing which they wouldn’t have made it to the Lt. Gen. rank in the first
place.
Third, there is no objective criteria
for deciding merit at the senior levels of the Army brass besides previous
annual confidential reports and civilian considerations, both of which are
subjective. Fourth, the argument that Gen. Rawat has the required experience in
certain theatres is again beside the point because the “Chief of the Army
Staff” is not an operational commander but a coordinator and chief strategist.
Finally, and most fundamentally, non-traditional appointments without a
compelling rationale set a bad precedent and could potentially lead to the
politicisation of the armed forces. Imagine senior Generals of the Army running
around Lutyens’ Delhi currying favour with ruling party politicians to make it
to the top!
There have been reports, citing
unnamed sources within the government, about the possibility of the most senior
General of the Army, Lt. Gen. Praveen Bakshi — now superseded by Gen. Rawat —
being appointed as the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). While it may turn
out to be mere speculation, if true, it may well be even more worrying. The
first in line becomes CDS, third in line gets the Army chief’s job. What about
the second in line, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Ali Hariz, one of the very few Muslim
officers to have become an Army commander? If the report turns out to be
correct, wouldn’t the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, by ignoring Gen.
Hariz, be sending out a politically incorrect signal? This question,
uncomfortable as it may sound, can’t be allowed to be swept under the carpet.
The justification of Gen. Rawat’s
appointment as stemming from his experience in dealing with insurgency is also
indicative of the deeply entrenched tactical thinking within the government at
the Centre. This then means that the BJP-led government considers
anti-militancy and counter-insurgency operations to be the fundamental job
description of the Indian Army. This is not just a tactical view of the
country’s threat environment but worryingly also ignores strategic planning and
an appreciation of the long-term strategic environment. Would the BJP-led
government like to reduce the Indian Army to a counter-insurgency force?
While the Army leadership is
exceptionally vocal on the ‘One Rank, One Pay’ question and parity with civil
servants, there is not much discussion about the issue of promotion-related
discrimination within the Army. Not only have infantry officers been getting
appointed to the coveted positions in the top rungs of the Army, the chiefs
often promote officers from their own regiments in a regrettable display of
parochial loyalties.
The outgoing chief Gen. D.S. Suhag,
for instance, is reported to have promoted officers from the Gorkha regiment
(including the incumbent chief Gen. Rawat), his own regiment. Former Army Chief
Gen. V.K. Singh, now Minister of State in the government, was also accused of
promoting officers from his own Rajput regiment. There is a growing sense of
resentment elsewhere in the Army about the disproportionate opportunities for
officers from the infantry and artillery wings.
Officers from other wings, especially
the Armoured Corps and Mechanised Infantry, have been publicly voicing their
concerns. Note that this is over and above the fact that only officers from the
fighting arms of the Army make it to the top, meaning that those from Engineers
and Signals don’t even stand a chance of doing so. This already existing
discrimination is getting even more glaring thanks to the new promotion policy
adopted by the Army. The victims of the new policy have been fighting it out in
the Supreme Court.
The ongoing court cases
The current debate about the Army’s
promotion policy has its genesis in the Kargil Review Committee report which
recommended that promotion to the Colonel and Brigadier levels should be made
quicker so that younger officers can command battalions and brigades.
Thereafter the Ajai Vikram Singh Committee (AVSC) made some important
recommendations in 2001 to restructure the officer cadre in the Army. Among
other things, it recommended the implementation of the Command Exit model (as
opposed to the pro rata basis) for promotion to the colonel level. While the
pro rata basis gave advantage to the infantry and artillery (given their
numerical superiority in the Army), the Command Exit model, which prescribed
differentiated command tenures (that is, the length of the tenures of
commanding officers i.e., colonels before promotion to the next level) for
various arms, gives even more advantage to the Infantry. Consider the
following: the AVSC fixed the command tenure of Infantry officers at 2.5 years,
that of Armoured/Mechanised Infantry and Artillery at three years, and
Engineers and Signals at four years. This has not only led to quicker
promotions for officers from the Infantry but they have also successively
managed to corner the Army chief’s post as well, including the last four times.
The last four Army Chiefs, including the current one, have been infantry
officers.
This ill-designed policy was
challenged by serving officers in the Armed Forces Tribunal, which squashed the
new promotion policy, holding that it violated Article 14 of the Constitution.
However, the Supreme Court in February 2016 upheld the policy, at the same time
asking the government to create 141 additional posts at the rank of colonel to
be granted to officers from Engineers, Signals and Air Defence. Late last year
around 350 senior Army officers have again approached the Supreme Court seeking
a review of its February judgment.
Then there are ugly public spats
between senior Army officers. Gen. V.K Singh, Army chief from March 2010 to May
2012, was not only the first serving Army chief to take the government to court
(on the issue of his date of birth) but has made uncharitable public
allegations against Gen. Suhag. Gen. Singh, during his tenure, had also placed
Gen. Suhag on a “discipline and vigilance ban” which could have stopped the
latter from becoming the chief. Before his retirement, Gen. Suhag filed an
affidavit in the Supreme Court in which he accused Gen. Singh of trying to
scuttle his promotion. Gen. Singh’s words and deeds during his tenure as Army
chief and after becoming a minister have not only been careless and
‘un-officer-like’ but also continue to create dissension in the Army top brass.
Need for
political oversight
While politicisation of the affairs
of the armed forces is indeed harmful, it may also not be a good idea to let
the Army handle its own business as it deems fit. At present, politicians
hardly focus on serious defence matters or inter-service/intra-service
tensions. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) bureaucrats, with limited expertise in
these matters, mostly function as gatekeepers keeping the forces away from the
civilian seats of power.
And yet, in keeping with the
commendable tradition of civilian supremacy in the country, it is time to
consider civilian oversight of the promotion process at the highest levels of
the armed forces. However, civil servants in the MoD or the Appointments
Committee of the Cabinet can’t alone be entrusted with that job. Ideally, such
high-level appointments should either be vetted by an empowered Parliamentary
Standing committee on Defence or be decided by a ‘bipartisan’ Selection
Committee composed along the lines of the one that selects the Central Bureau
of Investigation chief and the Chief Vigilance Commissioner.
The multiple crises afflicting the
Indian Army have far-reaching national security implications. Clearly, a
military force with sharp internal divisions and discontent in the ranks can
pose challenges for the country’s national security and the morale and cohesion
of the fighting forces. Such a pervasive sense of intra-service victimhood and
discrimination can further deteriorate the strength of a force which currently
has a shortage of over 9,000 officers.
If the Modi government wishes to
seriously address and tackle some of these troubling issues, and thereby
strengthen the country’s national security, the Defence Minister and the new
Army chief should take urgent measures to address the sources of this growing
discontent within the country’s ace force. Moreover, it is important that the
senior Army leadership rise above parochial regimental considerations and look
after the interests of the force as a whole rather than those of their own
regiments.
Happymon Jacob
teaches Disarmament and National Security at the School of International
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
By the kind courtesy of
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/All%E2%80%99s-not-well-in-the-Army/article16979007.ece?homepage=true
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