Blog: some Independence, please, for armed forces

Danapur: Villagers pay their last respects over the casket bearing the remains of soldier Vijay Kumar Rai on Thursday.

New Delhi: Col (Dr) Sudhir Sakhuja is a veteran Infantry officer with wide-ranging experience in counter-insurgency and border management duties. He also served as Spokesperson of the Indian Army in Delhi for five years. Presently he is a teacher.

The recent killings of five army personnel in the Poonch Sector along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir have both angered and shamed the nation.

Some attribute this incident to tactical lapses of the army, especially as it comes not long after the ghastly beheading of an Indian soldier by Pakistanis in Mendhar sector in January this year.

Defence Minister AK Antony's first statement in Parliament (and the army amending its press release to suit that statement) has not done well for the credibility of  either the government or the army.

It is also no secret in the Army circles that in the past too, the Indian government has underplayed incidents of border violations and intrusions both by Pakistan and China.

The governments that have controlled and directed the Armed Forces since India's independence have generally remained unchanged in their composition, lack of understanding of matters military and a broad peace time attitude of couldn't-care-much for armed forces. India's first Prime Minister Nehru's general dislike for the man in uniform has been commented upon by those who served the Army in that era.

Nehru was also of the view that since India believed in non violence, the Army could be scrapped and that the police forces were good enough for India's security. In September 1947, he decided to bring down the strength of the Army from about from 2,80,000 to about 1,50,000. Even after the hostilities with Pakistan in Kashmir in 1947-48, and the Chinese threat beginning to manifest in 1951, he still went ahead with the reduction of 50,000 troops.

After the India's first post-Independence Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), the British Lieutenant General (later Honorary General) Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher left for Britain in 1949, Nehru hesitated in appointing the legendary Field Marshal KM Cariappa, then the senior most and well respected King's Commission Officer, as Bucher's successor.  This despite the excellent demonstrated leadership of Cariappa in the 1947-48 hostilities with Pakistan in Jammu & Kashmir. It is only when Cariappa's junior; General Kumar Shri Rajendrasinhji declined to take over from Bucher, that Nehru reluctantly appointed Cariappa. The British army in India, though under the political control of the Governor General, enjoyed a large doze of autonomy. But taking advantage of Nehru's dislike and suspicion of the Armed forces, the bureaucrats quietly issued a government note in May 1952 which declared the Armed Forces Headquarters as the "attached" office the Defence Ministry.  With this seemingly innocuous note, the policy making freedom of the Services Headquarters which they enjoyed until then was divested in one single, swift and cunning stroke. That the appointment of Commander-in-Chief was also done away soon after, with Rajendrasinhji being C-in-C only for a part of his tenure and designated an Army Chief later, is also another related story of interest.

 The 1962 debacle against the Chinese is largely attributed to the government, read Nehru and Defence Minister Krishna Menon, making light of the advice by the armed forces led by General Thimayya who forewarned them about the imminence of the Chinese threat.

Years later, the government tinkered with the seniority principle of promotions for the post of Army Chief with disastrous results. The government superseded Lt Gen SK Sinha to appoint General AS Vaidya as the Army Chief. Sinha, who was the Vice Chief in the period leading on to Operation Blue Star was against the deployment of the Army to clear the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Sinha resigned on his being superseded. The much-debated deployment of army along with its tanks and artillery in Operation Blue Star in 1984 happened when Vaidya was the Army Chief.  If Sinha  was the Army Chief, whether he would have agreed to the employment of the army and its heavy weapons at the holy shrine can only be conjectured at this stage but seems less likely.

With the exception of Jaswant Singh, most Defence Ministers on taking charge of the ministry have  had little or no understanding of even the basic composition of the armed forces. At least in the early part of his tenure, any defence minister may not necessarily know the difference between a Division and a Corps or for that matter be entirely knowledgeable of the assortment of warlike equipment or much less, understand the nuances of military strategy. Perhaps the least that the Services expect is that the minister is attentive to and appreciative of the advice of the Services Chiefs because he by himself often knows little about matters military.

Instead, the Defence Ministers rely largely on the bureaucrats - Defence Secretary down wards. What is more, the bureaucrats at the higher level are no military experts themselves. Also we need to take note that there is only one Defence Secretary who deals with the three Services Chiefs and since he has the Defence Minister's ear and knows his mind, in the chain he is the keyman in the chain.

This chain however includes the Special Secretary, the Additional Secretary, the Joint Secretary, the Director, the Deputy Director and downwards to the very important Desk Officer- who continues to be often more 'powerful' than even a flag officer of the armed forces. Remember he and other senior babus constitute the mai baap 'Government', from which the armed forces need to seek directions and approvals on several issues.

Thus it is not unusual for even Services Chiefs keeping the Joint Secretaries and even the Director level bureaucrats in good humour as it is at their level that the proposals of the Armed forces are vetted in detail and they are capable of unduly delaying, if not stone walling them.  Not a single major policy can change and no promotions for Colonels upwards can be affected without 'Government' approval.

Even operationally-important equipment  has a gestation period of many years, most of them utilised by the armed forces in obtaining the elusive 'government' sanction on files which move slower than a drunk tortoise.

To add to the woes of the Army, those in the Finance Ministry excel in calculator science. They have also mastered the harassing art of blocking expenditure even from the budget allocated for the urgent operational requirements. After all, they too are the 'Government' to which the Army has to bow and seek directions and approvals.

It is extremely fortunate that our armed forces are apolitical.  In our part of the world which has had hyperactive and politically ambitious Generals, India seems to be an honourable exception.

It is, however, surprising that for over sixty years the general good of the armed forces and at times the national security needs are held hostage by the uninformed politicians on one hand and the manipulating bureaucracy on the other. No effective, repeat effective, institutional mechanism of integrating the military-bureaucratic approach to defence planning exists as on date. Precious little has been achieved by just renaming the Services Headquarters to be the Integrated Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence. The widely accepted need for having a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) as the single-point principal strategic advisor to the Prime Minister, though through the Defence Minister lies in the back burner. For decades now, citing one unconvincing reason or the other, successive governments have not sanctioned the creation of CDS. It is argued by some that such an appointment can threaten the political establishment. The bureaucrats have also successfully opposed the creation of this post. This leaves the Services fighting their own turf battles and the bureaucrats often playing the referee. And as all referees, they are powerful and feared controllers of the game.

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