Indian Defence Review

“He (the soldier) is thus the very basis and silent, barely visible cornerstone of our fame, culture, physical well-being and prosperity; in short, of the entire nation building activity. He does not perform any of these chores himself directly. He enables the rest of us to perform these without let, hindrance or worry (‘nirbhheek and nishchinta’).

Our military sinews, on the other hand, lend credibility to our pronouncements of adherence to good Dharma, our goodwill, amiability and peaceful intentions towards all our neighbour nations (‘sarve bhavantu sukhinaha, sarve santu niramayaha…’) as also those far away and beyond. These also serve as a powerful deterrent against military misadventure by any one of them against us.”—Chanakyaniti

Civil-military relationship, a very broad-based term, describes the link between civil society at large and the military, an organisation that has been specifically created to protect it. When considered in a narrow perspective, it is the rapport or the lack of it, between the civil authority of any given society and the military authority. The matter has been a subject of study and controversy since the times of Sun Tzu1 and Clausewitz2, both of whom argued that the military was primarily a servant of the State, basing it on an assumption that civilian control of a State is preferable to military control.

The issue was discussed at large amongst students of political science and sociology in the first half of the twentieth century, more so at the end of the Second World War (WW II) which also marked the beginning of the Cold War. Fears of growing militarism in the American society prompted the studies and produced influential readings from renowned authors as Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz. Debate has continued even after the end of the Cold War. The turn of the century witnessed increased incidents of military coup d’état in various parts of the world and discussions revolved around the declining power of the State and the necessity of a certain level of civilian control over the military.

The history of Higher Defence Management in India begins with the country’s independence and has been more than adequately influenced by the happenings in the world at that time. The Indian Civil Service played its role in marginalising the police and the military with the drafting of a framework for higher defence organisation. Over the last 65 years, this has been honed to suit the requirements of the bureaucrats of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Irrespective of the wars fought and the recommendations of various Committees including the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, the IAS has stubbornly managed to keep the Indian Armed Forces out of the higher decision-making loop.

American Theory

Huntington, in his book, The Soldier and the State (1957), has differentiated between the civil and military worlds, as dissimilarity between attitudes and values; conservative as held by the military and liberal by the civilians. Each has its own function and he called the officer corps as professionals as against the soldiers, whom he termed as “skilled craftsmen”. He advised professionalising the military, starting from the officer corps, emphasising important areas as discipline, order and self-sacrifice, training it to submit itself to civilian authority. To maintain control over the military, his advice to the civil authority was to direct the military without going against their privileges in order to avoid a reaction. This was termed as “objective control” as compared to “subjective control” which would be more intrusive.

That was in 1957 when the Cold War was approaching its prime and post-War, the USA was emerging as a liberalised society. Morris Janowitz, while agreeing with Huntington on the differences between the civil and military worlds, prompted a debate with his book, The Professional Soldier (1960). He argued that since the military was conservative, it would resist liberal societal changes and hence may also resist civilian control. He advised either a civilianisation of the military or a militarisation of the civilian society. Janowitz recommended the military be filled with entries into the officer corps not just from the training academies but from a military training programme to be initiated in elite universities. This would ensure a mix of civil-military culture and narrow the chasm between the two worlds.

The debate that was initiated by the two books decades ago continues to rage. The American military of today is different from the military of the yesteryears. Having fought many a war, it has gone through various theories of how to either maintain or reduce the gap between the two worlds. Commentators routinely moan about the gap, citing statistics of how the American Congress has fewer veterans ever since WW II. Former Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, also complained while speaking to an audience at Duke University in September 2010, “For a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do.”3 This gap is visible not just in the reducing numbers joining the military but also in the rising numbers, Generals included, leaving the military due to differences in the two societies and between those who run them.

Civil-Military Relationship in India

Direction in the civil-military relationship in any democracy is strictly the right of the political leadership. In India, however, in the decades since Independence, the word ‘civil’ has been misinterpreted and distorted to have the relationship being run by the bureaucrats, rather than the political class, the latter seemingly having voluntarily withdrawn in favour of the former. As a result, over the years, the Indian military has been subjected to a structure where it has been kept out or denied any meaningful role in Higher Defence Management or policy formulation being baptised by fire immediately after Independence notwithstanding. This has been brought to the attention of the powers-that-be by many a strategist and military chief but to no avail. During his lifetime the late K Subrahmanyam drew attention to this inconsistency and ironically, even after his demise, in essays published in a national daily (Indian Express, 04 February 2012).

Strategic culture is a product of a nation’s political culture and if it is founded on a flawed premise, it cannot but have an impact on the overall strategic disposition of the nation. In many important ways, strategic culture is also reflected in the quality of civil-military relations that exist. The Indian political establishment has laid down the principle of civil supremacy over the military. The Indian military has accepted it and operates under the provisions of the policy. Of late however, instances of friction in civil-military relations have increased.

“The Government of India Allocation of Business Rules”, published in 1961, is the Bible based on which the Indian State is administered. These Rules specify that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is comprised of four departments namely, the Department of Defence, the Department of Defence Production and Supply, the Department of Defence Research and Development and the Department of ex-Servicemen Welfare, along with a Finance Division. The three Service HQs are mentioned only as ‘Attached Offices’ of the Department of Defence and placed subordinate to it. The three Service Chiefs find no mention in the Rules and neither are they allocated any responsibilities! Rightly so, Admiral (Retd) Arun Prakash has bestowed the status of ‘invisible’ to them (“The Three Invisible Men”, Defence Watch, February 2012). As all the Departments are headed by civilian officers of the rank of Secretary, the military in India is, therefore, subordinate to the bureaucracy.

The reason for this skewed interpretation of civilian control of the military has its genesis in the immediate aftermath of Independence and it has only worsened in the succeeding years. The fear of a non-existent take-over of the nation by the military has been continuously stoked by the bureaucracy. The ill-informed political class has found it only too convenient to keep the military at bay. Since Independence, the many instances of civil-military discord from Nehru-Cariappa and Krishna Menon-Thimayya to the more recent one of Antony-VK Singh are indicative of the unrest and dissatisfaction in the military. Added to this are the anomalies of the Sixth Pay Commission which are yet to be resolved even after six years. Even after the shoddy treatment meted out to it, the military in India continues to serve the nation in its best traditions!

The Soothing Touch

Efforts to correct the imbalance and bring about reforms in the establishment in the face of well-entrenched positions of the bureaucracy and the reluctance of the political class to transform the system against the indifferent advice of the bureaucrats, have continued to remain unenthusiastic and subdued. The post-Kargil War review was expected to remove the disparities but the recommendations of Subrahmanyam Committee of 1999 and the Group of Ministers (GoM) Report of 2001, with veteran parliamentarian, LK Advani at the helm, were effectively scuttled by an uninterested ‘civilian-authority’, with some cosmetic changes, citing differences amongst the Services to implement the other major recommendations.

The Sixth Pay Commission, once again, brought to the fore the divergence of thought between the bureaucracy and the Armed Forces. There was no member from the Armed Forces in the Pay Commission. Anomalies in the recommendations of the Commission running in triple figures were set to be resolved by a Commission of Secretaries, once again with no representation from the Armed Forces! These are yet to be resolved and the country has seen some angry scenes of ex-Servicemen returning their medals to the President of India.

A Task Force on National Security was set up by the present Government under the stewardship of Shri Naresh Chandra, former Cabinet Secretary and Indian Ambassador to USA till 2001. Members of the Task Force included former Chiefs of the three Services, former heads of various Government Departments, retired bureaucrats and police officers. It is considered as the first serious review of national security after the Kargil Review Committee and had a few sub-committees to focus on internal security, defence and intelligence issues. The Task Force submitted its report to the Government on May 23, 2012. As per last information, it is yet to be perused by the Cabinet. It needs to be seen whether the Government has the sense of urgency and the political will to accept the recommendations and implement them, no matter how unsavoury they may be to certain segments of the establishment.

As late as July 2012, the Honourable Raksha Mantri (RM) wrote to the Prime Minister (PM) on the ‘growing discontent’ amongst the serving and retired members of the Armed Forces. On July 12, 2012, a high-level Committee was set up headed by the Cabinet Secretary and with five other senior Secretaries as members. The Committee, once again, had no member from the Armed Forces despite the three Service Chiefs writing separate letters to the RM to include representation from the Services. Unconvincing reasons have been put forward to not include any, citing that it would delay the submission of the report scheduled for August 08, 2012. It is not known whether the report has been submitted. At least there is no report in the media yet to indicate that the report has indeed been submitted. It was also expected that the PM would declare the recommendations of this Committee from the ramparts of the Red Fort of August 15, 2012, during his address to the Nation.

The Way Ahead

No other professional has shed so much blood for the nation. For members of the military, the shedding of blood whether that of others or their own, is not a strictly incidental part of their work. Historically, the protection of lives and territories has been the fundamental purpose of militaries. So has been the historical purpose of the Indian political and bureaucratic class in setting up Committees and Commissions to ‘look into’ the grievances of the Armed Forces. Will the recommendations of the Naresh Chandra Committee and that of the Committee of Secretaries, ever see the light of day or would they be consigned to the archives to surface after another war or another national crisis?

For one thing, our nation, like some many others, arose from mayhem and has faced war at regular intervals. War has profoundly shaped our history and for this reason, the military is deeply linked to our sense of national identity in a way that is true for no other profession. The bureaucrats do not retire at 35 years of age or for that matter at 54. They retire at 60 or 62 years after having served in the Capital for a major portion of their service and are immediately re-employed for another twenty years or so as a member or the head of a Commission/Committee. If they cannot relate to the difficulties faced by the men in uniform both during and after their service, how then can they be expected to do justice in redressing the disparities that exist between the ‘civil authority’ and the military?

While the author is not against the establishment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) as has been recommended by many, the appointment is also not going to be the panacea for all ills. The Air Force has been blamed for the delay of the appointment of a CDS. What the Air Force has been asking for is that a host of other recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee and the GoM report of 2001 be implemented before a CDS is appointed. What the many Committees have recommended in some form or the other, and the author is in full agreement with them, is that the marginalising of the military in higher defence decision making has to end.

There is a need to have civil servants in the higher defence organisation along the lines as in UK, suitably adapted to Indian conditions. The Ministry of Defence needs an expert cadre and not a generalist cadre. Alongside, there is also the need to have diplomats in the ministry to provide useful inputs, keeping in mind that defence and foreign policy are two sides of the same coin. The civil servant and the military officer must work together at each level of the organisation, from the lowest to the highest, avoiding the ‘us and them’ attitude.

Change, if it comes, will be strongly resisted not just by the bureaucracy but also by the Armed Forces. The experiences of 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971, Kargil, Op PARAKRAM and 26/11 have revealed the shortfalls in our higher defence decision-making process, and the lackadaisical attempts to put right the system. Do we need another major crisis for a wake-up call?