THROUGH THICK AND THIN - The government must revive the morale of the armed forces
BRIJESH D. JAYAL

Unsung lives
Through this column I would like to congratulate Manmohan Singh and his party for having provided this nation with what was most needed at this critical juncture — a stable government. While doing so I must confess that I am guilty of not being one of those who have made this possible. I chose not to exercise my franchise since the denial of the right to exercise the option of ‘none of the above’ is to my mind not being fair to the spirit of our democracy.
The subject of this article, however, is not electoral reform, but the one institution that has served the nation through thick and thin at the cost of tremendous human hardship and sacrifice — the armed forces of the republic of India. While the public still holds the armed forces in some esteem, the same cannot be said of those who govern the country. Had it been otherwise, there would not have been a progressive decline in the status of the armed forces in the national scheme of things. To quote the Kargil review committee report, “India is perhaps the only democracy where the armed forces headquarters are outside the apex governmental structure.” It would be fair to say that every government since Independence has contributed to the decline of the status of the armed forces and its veterans, either by design or by neglect.
But one needs to make an exception. There was one minister of state for defence under the Rajiv Gandhi government, whose understanding of matters military and the ethos of the armed forces was profound. He later chaired a committee on defence expenditure set up by the V.P. Singh government, and the task force on management of defence set up as a consequence of the Kargil review committee report. Both these exercises had the stamp of his understanding of the issues involved and their national implications. Had the recommendations of these committees been implemented in the spirit in which they were made, the need for this article may well not have arisen.
The nation today is faced with stark choices. The national security environment is the most demanding since Independence and deteriorating by the day. The spectrum of warfare now spans the nuclear at one end to urban and internal at the other. Decades of insurgency in the East and years of proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir are taking a heavy toll on a professional army. Incidents of fratricide and suicides are increasing alarmingly. Hostile interests are taking advantage by spreading disinformation about the armed forces — ‘psychological warfare’ in today’s parlance. We are losing dozens of lives on active duty even during peace. Our borders with both Pakistan and China are underprepared. Revolutions in military affairs demand much greater levels of technological and training skills than at present, but the pool of volunteers is fast shrinking. Yet opportunities in civil life are expanding with generous salaries and stable lives.
That over the years the status of the armed forces has progressively declined is no secret. What is less evident is that the morale of this fine institution is being sapped bit by bit. Because service ethos demands cheerful acceptance of orders, this decline has been taken as meek acceptance. As internal security challenges rise, the polity becomes more competitive, and for the 24-hour electronic media hungry for breaking news, there is a temptation to make a scapegoat of the military. It happened in Manipur some years ago, it occurs frequently in Jammu and Kashmir, and happened recently in Tamil Nadu where an army convoy was needlessly attacked. Successive service leaderships have failed to convince the government of the adverse implications of this state of affairs. The sixth pay commission has merely added another insult to the already wounded psyche of the armed forces.
For the first time in the nation’s history, veterans — from soldiers to three-star ranks — have been driven to express their anguish publicly by holding rallies across many cities, sitting in dharna at Jantar Mantar and, in a regrettable gesture, surrendering their prized medals to the supreme commander in their thousands. These unheard of incidents would have evoked instant response from the government in any democratic country. Our silence is both pregnant and deafening.
The nation needs to introspect. Why, for instance, are we the only democracy where civilian control of the armed forces has come to mean bureaucratic control? Why has there been a systematic and progressive decline in the standing of the armed forces over these last six decades? Why is it that the only living five-star rank-holder should feature in the warrant of precedence below the cabinet secretary? And why was it thought fit not to give a state funeral to a field marshal, who contributed to our 1971 war victory? One could go on; suffice it to say that slowly but surely we are robbing our armed forces of the oxygen of izzat and iqbal, shorn of which they will become mere mercenaries.
The nation under the leadership of Manmohan Singh needs to decide whether it needs professional and combat-worthy armed forces or is content with forces that will be runners-up. Military morale is a strange phenomenon. You can neither define it easily nor see it. While perceptive commanders can feel it in their bones, once it begins to evaporate, even the finest of them need godly qualities to revive it. Too much is at stake for it to be left to the very institutions that have brought us to this pass — and every arm of governance must accept the blame. The legislature for taking little interest in matters relating to the forces, unless there was some political mileage. The government for remaining a mute spectator and resisting bringing the military into the decision- and policymaking process. The bureaucracy for having converted the dictum of civilian control over the military to bureaucratic control. And finally, the armed forces leadership for sometimes failing to protect the ‘safety, honour and welfare of the men they command’ in the face of this onslaught.
The Mumbai attacks tell us how fragile the security environment is and the newer threats that are emerging. Pakistan has kept even the sharpest strategic minds guessing, but the prognosis is far from good. The West sees its war on terror as somewhat different from ours. A senior American navy commander’s recent revelation of Chinese maritime intentions in the Indian Ocean should cause us no surprise. The situations in Nepal and Sri Lanka are still evolving. In every area, without sounding pessimistic, we need to be prepared for far greater security challenges.
The nation can not afford to sit idle while our armed forces continue down a slippery slope. The time has come to opt for innovative solutions — something for which Singh is best known. Let the nation respond by setting up a ‘Blue Ribbon commission’ to look at all aspects of our armed forces. This would encompass every sphere, from the changing nature of warfare to what sort of armed forces are needed in the future, to inter-service working, to the way the forces are organized and integrated within the national decision-making process, to their place within the hierarchy and that of veterans in society, to the creating of a war memorial as well as other issues that contribute to making the armed forces of any nation a unique institution.
The ‘Blue Ribbon commission’ would include citizens known for their experience and non-partisan interests, and will give the beleaguered armed forces some level of comfort. Its recommendations must be debated in Parliament, which should then legislate on major issues determining the role and place of the armed forces in our country.
Legislative direction is the surest way to ensure that decisions that become law are implemented. Otherwise they are open to administrative sleight-of-hand. Even in the United States of America it was the Goldwater-Nichols Act that mandated the joint chiefs of staff institution, scrutinized professional military education and mandated strengthening of focus on joint matters.
It is possible that our precedent-driven administrative system will resist this as a Blue Ribbon commission approach is a departure from the norm. But Singh must have faced similar hurdles when he embarked on the bold economic reforms in 1991. The institution of the armed forces now looks up to him for similar salvation.

Shadow Cabinet

BJP must appoint one for (its own and) India’s sake.
Inspired by the way things happen at the Westminster, a Shadow Cabinet has been a long-standing demand of many well-meaning political commentators in this country. Now that most commentators are predicting the end of coalition politics in this country of last two decades, it is perhaps time for the BJP to step up and grab the space of the principal opposition party, which is willing to put forth an alternative agenda for governance. Rather than staging walk-outs from the Parliament over petty political issues and launching inelegant personal attacks, the BJP should focus on shaping the debate in parliament and influencing policy making.
A prerequisite for achieving this noble goal is for the BJP to not only privately anoint a loose group but publicly declare a Shadow Cabinet. Let Jaswant Singh take on AK Antony on issues related to national security. Let Mr. Antony answer to the nation [through Jaswant Singh] why the major recommendations of the GoM report submitted after the Kargil Review Committee haven’t been implemented so far. The parliamentary committee on defence has made many recommendations to the defence ministry and defence services in the last five years but they haven’t also been seriously considered by the government, forget about them being implemented.
Let the defence minister also explain his ministry’s pathetic record on defence spending under his watch. What, to his mind, is the optimum capital to revenue expenditure ratio for national defence? How can it be achieved, if capital spending is either being reappropriated into revenue expenditure or being returned unutilised? Should the defence spending be related to the national GDP or should there be a quadrennial defence review conducted by the government to determine the budget for the defence LTIPP?
A discussion on defence spending can only occur if the the government’s view on the geopolitical situation in South Asia is known to the nation. Where do the defence services fit in that scheme of things? Is it merely about more weaponry and more numbers — against China or whomsoever he perceives the enemy to be? What are the Indian armed forces readying themselves for? And how will they get there? Can the defence minister and the shadow defence minister agree upon a bipartisan committee or bipartisan studies to recommend the future course of action for India’s national security setup?
There are numerous other issues pertaining to national defence and security — from civil-military relations to Indian contribution to UN peacekeeping missions — that must be debated and publicly scrutinised via means of an informed debate in the Parliament. A shadow defence minister, dedicated to the subject — with a younger MP as his understudy — is sine qua non for improving the functioning of Indian democracy and holding the government accountable on serious issues of national importance. The shadow defence minister and his understudy have to be automatically nominated to the parliamentary committee on defence by the BJP, so that they can influence debate and policy making through a parliamentary fora available to the elected representatives of the country.
Such a measure will not only allow the BJP to reinvent itself as a center-right party focused on substantive issues of governance — rather than frittering its energies on frivolous emotive issues — but also act as a check on the political executive running amok. It will re-establish the primacy of the Parliament — as an institution of public debate and policy making — something which seems to have been appropriated by TV studios in this country to the chagrin of all well-meaning Indians. If the BJP can implement this, it would be doing itself and the nation a huge favour which many generations to come (and this nation’s voters) will express their gratitude for. Can the BJP rise to the occassion