Personnel Management: As discussed above, misplaced notions of ‘equivalency’ between the soldiery and the civilian establishment has led to the Army becoming top heavy and aged. Rather than finding better emoluments within the same rank structure and a second career at the middle age, the Army is now required to win wars with bloated staff and personnel-deficient units, with more Colonels than Captains and soldiers past their physical prime.
Young, energetic young men are deterred from joining army. Officers’ training academies remain unfilled and there are rumours of lowering the entry standards, while recruitment of soldiers is confined to those who are unable to find a job. Such men cannot wield complex weapons and equipment worth crores. They would not spiritedly risk lives to ‘hunt’ tanks or over-run the enemy even against mounting causalities. Indeed, such men do not win wars.
The advocates of equality of sexes have thus perpetrated a farce and have targeted the armed forces to impose their social experimentation ““ save their own kith and kin”¦
High pitch rhetoric regarding women joining the armed forces – curiously, only as officers, not in enlisted ranks – celebrates this development as the final “breaching of male bastion”. Though women have been contributing to the armed forces and performing softer assignments, the demand has now been extended to admitting them into the fighting elements under permanent terms of service. The rhetoric goes on to propagate a conditional fact that this will address the dearth of male volunteers, points to the obvious that women are equally intelligent, competent, mature and courageous, and cites half-truths regarding service-women’s combat performance in the Western armies.
The fact that physiological and psychological characteristics of women are not suited to unrestricted violence of combat, that it would be exceptional for them to lead tough and over-charged death-defying troops in engaging equally ferocious adversary in the battle zone, that among them the zeal for combat tapers off with age, and that presence of women adds to the operational and administrative burden of the soldiery, are left unstated in the garb of political correctness. The advocates of equality of sexes have thus perpetrated a farce and have targeted the armed forces to impose their social experimentation – save their own kith and kin – as if fighting under extreme conditions was not enough for the hapless soldiery.
Urgently needed modernisation schemes would be considered, only if, money-making sharks are prevented from abusing the system, interests of the domestic defence industry are promoted and civil obligations of the state are promoted.
In a recent case of imposition of the regime of democratic dispensation on military institution, the courts and the state have obliged the Army to retain physically disadvantaged personnel – nearly eight percent of its overall strength of fighting force – rather than taking it upon themselves to attend to these veterans, as it should have been. Thus in a set up wherein every man counts, one in every ten is a hors-de-combat.
The message reveals a serious mindset. Urgently needed modernisation schemes would be considered, only if, money-making sharks are prevented from abusing the system, interests of the domestic defence industry are promoted and civil obligations of the state are promoted. In effect, as if fighting a war was not enough, the soldiery must also bear the burden of advancing the most complex of the societal goals! Undoubtedly, the connections and the priorities are severely flawed.
Wake-up Call
Under a regime of systemic neglect, ominous cracks on the hallowed military edifice are apparent – cases of suicides, fratricides, malpractices, nepotism, indiscipline, court cases, even subversion, are rising. After all, men unsuited to the soldiers’ calling and who perceive at being accorded short shrift, cannot be expected to remain motivated in upholding the traditional soldierly dignity in the face of marginalisation by those for whom they fight. Of late, a perception of the state’s blatant apathy towards its soldiery was manifested by widespread indignation following the Pay Commission award that is seen to have lowered their status and denied benefits due to them. Thus an unprecedented and potentially dangerous situation has emerged, with veterans returning their service medals to the President and seeking intervention of courts in begging for their dues, while the government remains unmoved. That the adverse fallouts of running the military institution down would haunt the nation sooner than later, is a disturbing thought.
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