Revive the morale of the armed forces

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.
The author is a retired air marshal of the Indian Air Force
THROUGH THICK AND THIN- The government must revive the morale of the armed forces BRIJESH D JAYAL