It will be of interest to study the part played by vision (more an exception in the leadership than professionally fostered) in The crossing of the Meghna, and lack of it (a general condition of leadership) in the 1962 NEFA debade. Srilanka episode of 1987-90 was probably an example of intellectual weakness and misplaced vision, which resulted in that “march of folly” (Barbara tuchman’s monumental work).
For the first time in sixty years the matter of serviceman’s view has come to a head. The government and the society have to tackle the financial aspect of soldiers incentive, as is rather firmly being insisted upon by the service chiefs. How far the government and the society tolerate the service chief’s pressure in accommodating their demands, and how for the service chiefs stretch their persistence need to be watched. That is likely to lay the first foundation stone of a healthy convention between civil-military relations, if only the politician throws out his apprehension of a military coup.
Also read: The price of ignoring military mind
This foundation will also have to include the unique content of the serviceman’s demand for due status, honour and recognition. Secondly, both the government and the services, the latter in particular, need to make room for the serviceman’s job satisfaction and intellectual development. There is a need to review the identification of requirements in the entry candidates, method of breaking him in for professional imperatives, followed by educating him on intellectual plane, and employing him in an optimal manner that gives him job satisfaction and a sense of contribution, in order to retain him in service and add qualitatively to the military leadership content.
By and large the soldier and the ex-soldier have been progressively devalued and given low priority in the public eye, the government and, much more regrettably, the civil administrative machinery at the state and district levels. In some northen states the soldier continues to remain in their eye, but in the rest of the country he is neglected. Particularly so in matters of revenue, litigation, property and legal cases, where he has to remain away for long periods.
Soldier Boards in most states are helpless, powerless, inadequately staffed. Civil officials-DCs, secretaries and ministers have little interest in their functioning, with little or no communication between them for years together, leave aside interaction. This state of affairs has to change. Soldier needs to be at par with other concerns of civil administration, with a couple of concessions, namely those of being heard quickly and disposed off quickly and reducing the legal wrangles he has to go through while he is immersed in the exigencies of service, while paying a heavy price on his return to the ex-serviceman’s status.
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