Arms and the missing men

Does the pay commission address the army’s real problem— the huge shortage of officers? Its recommendations alone will certainly not do, writes Lt Gen Vinay Shankar.

Parity
Going by media headlines, the Sixth Pay Commission’s substantive message to the defence forces is that it has attempted to bring about pay parity with the bureaucrats — as if this is all that matters to them. Comparison is certainly an issue but it is not the only issue.

Steady disaffection
The defence services’ repeated pleas for a special pay board for them have never been accepted by the government, nor has the services’ request for at least including defence services officers as members of the Pay Commission Committee. Why do these legitimate requests get repeatedly stonewalled? The only explanation could be that the government is not yet sufficiently convinced about the necessity to treat the military as a special category. The consequence within the military is that of slow and steady disaffection.

Redressal
With each pay commission, some hopes do get rekindled. It has been the same during the period of deliberations of this pay commission. Now that the report is out, what is the denouement? The broad spectrum view is that Justice Srikrishna has been relatively more sensitive and more appreciative than his predecessors. He has tried to redress some of the disparities that the earlier pay commissions had inflicted. There are many issues that will still bother the defence services, but altogether there is recognition that this time there has been relatively greater understanding and commitment to address their concerns.

Real crisis
But the real issue is whether the dispensation that is eventually awarded on the basis of the pay commission’s recommendations has any direct impact on the crisis that the army is facing — the huge shortage of officers. It was on Army Day this year that the army chief drew the nation’s attention to this problem. Many believe that this is something that should have been done at least a decade ago.

Increasing commitments
The army has been unsuccessfully grappling with this problem for close to three decades. It began to hurt from about the mid- eighties— the time it was stretched to the point of snapping. The time when we were on an expeditionary mission in Sri Lanka, concurrently coping with Operation Blue Star and its aftermath, and also dealing with Operation Rhino in Assam. Since then, there has been no let up in the army’s commitments. As a matter of fact, the situation in Kashmir from 1990 onwards has further exacerbated matters.

Basic building block
It is important to know a little about how the army functions to better understand the gravity of the problem. The basic building block of the army is what we call a ‘unit’; also known as battalion or regiment depending on the corps to which the unit belongs. All the ‘action and execution’ in the army is at this level. After this level, the direct command of soldiers ceases.

Commanding officer
A unit is expected to have around 600 to 800 soldiers and 18 to 25 officers and is commanded by a colonel. It is at this level that an officer learns soldiering and the operational employment of his unit in battle. This level is also where the officer’s baptism to leadership is initiated. Similarly, soldiers after completing recruit training come to the units to be welded into a fighting force and imbibe values of loyalty, discipline, comradeship and pride in the profession of arms. But all this can only happen if there is good leadership in the unit. Otherwise who will teach, train and lead by example? Who will the soldiers and young officers aspire to emulate? Sufficiency and quality of officers is thus critical to the health of units, the basic building block of any army.

Weakening of Command
So when units do not have adequate numbers of officers the army’s foundation gets weakened. Let us see how critical the problem is. The quoted figure of shortage is about 11,000 to 12,000, which approximates to a deficiency of about 30 per cent. Since all the shortages are in the ranks of subalterns and captains, at the unit level this gets compounded to more than 50 per cent of the authorisation. Consequently, units today are making do with barely 8-12 officers against the 18-25 that should be there. Take away leave, sickness and other sundry commitments and the effective strength gets further whittled down to 4-6 officers.

Officer quality
It ought to be a matter of wonder then as to how our army, for instance, successfully fought the Kargil war and continues to effectively combat terrorism and militancy in J&K or in Assam and the Northeast. Some plain speaking on this score from within is necessary. We must admit that had the army been ‘better’ officered it could have accomplished much more or achieved what it did at lesser cost; better— both in terms of numbers of junior leaders and the overall quality of leaders.

Inherent strength
What the army managed to achieve has largely been due to its inherent resilience and the deeply ingrained ethos of duty above all else and delivering without bellyaching, values bequeathed to it in its formative years, post independence, by its leadership — a leadership which was not without its faults.

Lack of leadership
Symptoms of the growing ailment have been surfacing with increasing frequency over the last decade or so. Suicides, soldiers running amuck, court cases, moral turpitude, the list is long. There would be many explanations for the rash of disciplinary cases that are taking place but we must all accept that the principle reason is leadership.

Izzat
Debates on pay, perks and izzat and what constitutes good leadership material are interesting academic pursuits, but right now there is a crisis brewing. We need immediate answers and an action plan that can be implemented over the next five years.

Chief's concern
The army chief has publicly drawn attention to perhaps his single most important concern — not the gun, but the man behind the gun. The prime minister and defence minister should take note. This Pay Commission’s recommendations alone will certainly not do.

Lt Gen Vinay Shankar (Retd)
Former DG Arty

Reproduced: Thursday, March 27, 2008, Indian Express

Comments: Para headings included for convenience of Blog readers. A sound analysis which needs immediate attention on all aspects enumerated above to obviate the declining image of the Defence Forces.