SCPC: Responses and Rejoinders to " Services Contempt of Civil authority"

From: VIJAY OBEROI
To: LETTERS TO EDITOR THE TRIBUNE letters@tribuneindia.com
Cc: editor in chief editorinchief@tribuneindia.com
Sent: Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 5:02:58 PM
Subject: OP-ED ARTICLE BY ARUNDHATI GHOSE

Dear Editor,
When respected experts fall prey to pressures, without applying their minds, one more notch is added to the insidious build up of disinformation relating to the legitimate aspirations of the Indian Military. Arundhati Ghose has done it this time, with her piece “Services contempt….” published in The Tribune of October 22, 2008 . It is sad that a discerning person like Arundhati has called the actions of the service chiefs as “insidious and underestimated danger which has raised its venomous head”! Whoa – is this how mountains are made out of mole hills? The chiefs had correctly informed their commands that there would be a delay in their receiving new scales of pay, as important anomalies are still to be resolved. This perfectly legitimate duty and innocuous communication has become a sinister ‘challenge and defiance’! What deviousness!

I am amused by Arundhati’s phrase, so eloquently stated – “contempt of the forces for their civilian masters and counterparts”, implying that bureaucrats are also masters. How cheeky? She has even brought in the Constitution, albeit wrongly, to imply that the bureaucrats and the political leaders are synonymous when one talks of ‘civil control’! My right foot (which of course is non-existent, having been left on an obscure battlefield many decades back)!

This piece is so blatantly mischievous that one is dismayed at the levels to which our worthy bureaucrats have chosen to fall. They need to note that military discipline does not imply accepting rubbish, even when it is presented with the insidious machinations of the bureaucracy, wrapped in red tape.

Yours Sincerely
Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi (Retd)
Former Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS)

Dear Editor
You are well aware how Shekhar Gupta of Indian express got it all wrong when he accused the chiefs of defying civilian authority. While Shekhar Gupta has been prudent enough in not defending his article or continuing to justify it, now a responsible and eminent diplomat like Arundhati Ghose has picked up the wrong end of the stick by accusing the chiefs of asking "their ranks not to implement the decision of the Cabinet." Well, Arundhati, this just hasn't happened. The chiefs only informed the ranks that the Government was considering the issue and there may be a delay in payment. I would have admired her, had she, as a citizen, demanded disciplinary action against the chiefs if she really believed that the Chiefs had defied or disobeyed the cabinet by doing so. Instead of taking a principled stand, she chose to follow the strange logic that the writings of uninformed editors like Shekhar Gupta automatically turn into truth just because services did not publicly contradict them.

Incidentally, is the cabinet decision final and absolute even when it is impregnated with fraud committed by bureaucrats who were charged with removing the anomalies created by 6th CPC? Should the chiefs blindly accept a decision without exercising their duty of requesting a review? Apparently not, because that very decision is now under review by a ministerial group on orders from the Prime Minister. The stand taken by chiefs can be called by whatever name one likes but the PM has considered it legitimate and has, so to say, enjoined himself with it by appointing the Pranab Committee. This committee will surely accept the legitimate demands of servicemen and then history will know whether the culprits are the bureaucrats or the services. Our country is fortunate that it is led by sagacious people like Mr Manmohan Singh and not by those to take press reports as true and jump to conclusions.

Col Sharad Paranjape (Retd)

Dear Chander,
This is with reference to Ms Arundhati Ghose's article in Tribune 22 October and Vijai Oberoi's rejoinder to it.

I do not think the lady needs to be taken seriously. She is a one- book wonder and that does not make her an authority on matters military particularly on the customs and traditions of the armed forces and the value of 'Izzat' for a soldier, sailor and airman.

I am afraid neither she nor Kuldip Nayar has understood this point. Both of them are harping on the 'trade union tactics' by the three Service Chiefs. So airing genuine grievances of the armed force is 'trade unionism'?

As we see it, the Chiefs have shown moral courage of the highest order by living up to the Chedwodian credo enshrined on the portals of IMA. They have earned the admiration of all the servicemen, in and out of uniform. And if it is trade unionism, so be it.

I wish all the future Chiefs perfect this art. I am afraid, both Ms Arundhati Ghose and Mr Nayar are way off the mark and both need to be ignored.

Sincerely
HB Kala
Lt Gen HB Kala, is Former Army Commander, Western Command

The article, “Services contempt of civil authority is not casual” (Oct 22) has caused much consternation amongst the services. Arundhati Ghose has tried to see ghosts where there are none. The article itself is highly biased.

We have the ambition to be a world economic power, but the vision and will of a third world country when it comes to creating strategic capabilities. Given the geo-strategic environments of the region and India’s unwillingness to rise to meet the emerging challenges, the picture is getting fairly grim by the day. To complete that picture, one may add the factor of de-motivation of country’s armed forces.

Now that the fudging of the Cabinet decision by the Babus to advantage the IAS and the IFS has come to light (Outlook, Oct 13), would some one file a PIL against this forgery?

It also explains Ms Ghose joining the fracas. Had the Defence Minister told the Service Chiefs that the Cabinet decision was final, it would have left the chiefs two options to either resign in protest or accept half a century’s piled up degradations of their commands.
Grim picture

Dear Editor,

Ambassador Arundhati Ghose has written about the armed forces and their contempt of civil authority. She has written in true diplomatic style for it was Isaac Goldberg who defined diplomacy as the ability to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way.

She paints a grim picture of what terrible things are happening in our country but omits to say that it is IAS who are to be squarely blamed for lack of proper administration that is responsible for this sorry state of affairs. She goes on to imply that amid all this din, the action taken by armed forces amounts to back stabbing the civilian government and an explanation is owed to the nation. The problem is that everybody except IAS/IFS civil servants have limited powers and full responsibilities. These jacks of no trade lord and master over all the professionals. In the bargain they call themselves the government; they have all the powers and no responsibilities. They specialise in awarding to themselves all the undeserved pay, power and pelf at the expense of everyone else. A time had to come when this kind of lopsided arrangement and its one sided results had to be challenged. The IAS committee of secretaries deliberately and mischieviously added a few more anamolies instead of solving the ones they were supposed to do. Madam Ambassador must be very naive to think there would be no backlash and outcry against it. Diplomacy has also been described as the patriotic art of lying for one's country; here we see that it is being done for her own tribe, country can look after itself. There is not even a talk about taking them to task, let alone doing it. Are they all in cahoots with their political masters? Looks like they all share between them the 145 billions odd US dollars stashed away by Indians in the swiss banks. Details of this money will be given by the banks to Govt of India if they ask for it. Any guesses why the Govt has not yet asked for the details?

Thousands of armed forces officers and men have made the supreme sacrifice while defending the borders or while helping the civil administration who are unable or unwilling or untrained to tackle civil unrest and insurgency and disasters, both natural as well as man made. Wars are a result of diplomatic failure and civil unrest a result of adminstrative ineptness. Have IAS/IFS people ever taken or been given any blame for it? Have they ever laid down even a single life as the servicemen do? The only time when an IFS man lost his life in Kabul they all bacame unhinged. A totally undeserved Kirti Chakra and lifetime pay and house was announced for his widow. Did the family of the Brigadier who died in the same attack get anything near what this IFS man's wife got? Why not?

She goes on to say that envious eyes are being cast across the border to the privileges and power of their counterparts. This is plain fear mongering and a ruse to manipulate our generally clueless politicians. Surely she understands that it does not take much of an effort and about one day for Indian army to round up a few thousand odd politicians and civil servants. They'll then quietly toe the line as they all did during the infamous emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. That it has not been done so far is a testimony to the patriotic character of our armed forces. We all know that a country taken over by military is a country gone to dogs.

Time has come for these civil servants to wake up to the realities and mend their ways, before someone ends their ways and the country goes to dogs.

I'll end my letter by just touching upon the action taken by the Services Chiefs. It was very correct action because as Lord Harold Caccia once said 'If you are to stand up for your Government you must be able to stand up to your Government'. Surely the learned Ambassador has heard it before because I believe Caccia too was a diplomat.

Yours sincerely,
Krishan K Punchhi
Commander, Indian Navy, Retired
Services’ contempt of civil authority is not casual by Arundhati Ghose, The writer is a former Ambassador of India to the UN at Geneva

Tailpiece: Arundhati Ghose clapping hands with Bureaucrats is a natural reaction indeed. Birds of the same feather flock together!