New Delhi:
India's new Army Chief took over on Thursday and declared that his agenda will be improving "the internal health" of the force.
59-year-old General VK Singh is India's 26th Army Chief. As the Eastern Army Commander in Kolkata, he recommended that the Military Secretary to his predecessor be sacked for alleged corruption. That controversy, called the Sukna Land Scam, has led to public debate about whether the Army is capable of taking strict action against its own.
In an exclusive interview to NDTV's Nitin Gokhale, General Singh shares his priorities.
NDTV: General, thank you very much for finding time in such a busy schedule. Let me ask you straight away what are the challenges that you have envisaged in the tenure that you are going to have?
General VK Singh: Our biggest challenge is how to remove our hollowness in terms of deficiencies in various fields. And the second one is modernization. Both need to be addressed on priority so that whatever the army requires which makes it battle-worthy is there.
NDTV: What do you mean by hollowness in the....?
General VK Singh: See, when I talk of hollowness, you are authorized of something, it may not be there because over a period of time the procurement procedures ... the other things that keep coming... some things get obsolete so it creates some amount of deficiency and void, specially the combat units. So that is where the priority is. A man who is going to fight must have everything that he needs.
NDTV: That's right and you also in the past spoken about the transformation of the Indian army to meet the challenges of the modern ware-fare. Now what are the focus areas... you just mentioned some of these but a little bit more about...
General VK Singh: See, when we talk of transformation, it's the process that we want to start... and this transformation is to make the army more lethal, more agile and more responsive. We have had a study on this and the study has been finalized, and there are a lot of things that have some come out as part of our transformation. Ultimately, we are looking at working as a network force in a joint-service environment where we are able to cope up with the future challenges. Now transformation is not something which you can do in a day. It will take... it will be a gradual process... and we want to start it... and it will be started by certain test beds on which we want to look at these transformation concepts that we have worked out.
NDTV: In the morning you spoke about trying to set right the internal health. Can you explain more about that...
General VK Singh: See, what I meant about the internal health was that we have certain core values, we have certain traditions. There are certain norms that the army follows. And what I want to emphasize here is that we keep hearing that in the civil society, the norms are like this, and our intake is from the civil society and therefore, degeneration is taking place. I think that's a myth that we have got to discard. The norms that the civil society has, they are one set, but so far as the armed forces are concerned, we have got to have our own sets of integrity and probity and that is what I mean by internal health.
NDTV: That's right, and as a third-generation army officer, I am sure you know what you need to do so you think there will be a little bit of resistance in doing that because... do you think it is correctable? Has the rot set in too deep or is it still retrievable?
General VK Singh: I think it is correctable. I think it is just a question of emphasis. I think it is a also a question of what examples you set, it all stems from there. I think it all stems from the top.
NDTV: That's why you perhaps did what you did...when you were an Eastern Army Commander.
General VK Singh: Well, I took a decision in a particular manner. The matter is sub-judice now and I really won't elaborate on it.
NDTV: One final question. Everybody keeps talking about the two-and-a-half war front that India has to face with Pakistan being the first one, China being the second one, and of course the insurgency is the internal thing. What would be your priority? Is it going to be all equal? Or is it going to be focused on one particular sector of these challenges?
General VK Singh: See when we talk of these fronts, we are looking at both our capacity and capability-building. As an army, we need to cater for a set of contingencies and threats. And therefore this talk about so many fronts, and how we are going to make our capabilities that much better so there are certain areas that we have looked at. and all that we want to do is... it is not specific to any country, it is how we want to make ourselves more effective to meet the challenges that we will face.
NDTV: Thank you general for taking out time and you have a lot of work ahead ... we wish you all the best.