Public memory is very short. For the majority of us “mulki laat-jungi laat” would sound like a queer jumble of words. But just a hundred years ago, a mock battle was fought between the two-it was a corporate clash and there was no bloodshed. The Mulki Laat was Lord Curzon, the Governor General of India, and the Jungi Laat was Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief of India.
Who are their counterparts today? President, the Head of State and the Prime Minister, the Head of the Government–as “Mulki” and the three Service Chiefs as “Jungi”. It will be ridiculous to compare the status and protocol gradation enjoyed by the Commander-in-Chief of those days. He was virtually the NO.2 man in the Viceroy’s Council. In one of the rarest of the rare cases (which would cause consternation amongst the present-day highly protocol-conscious bureaucracy) the Governor-General (Lord Hardinge) fought under the overall command of the Commander-in-Chief (Lord Ghoh). This was during the Anglo-Sikh war-and of course the anomaly was by exception and never repeated again.
Lord Kitchener was one of the most distinguished soldiers of the British empire. He took over as Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army in 1902. To him goes the credit of changing the role and nomenclature of the Indian armed forces hitherto it was a colonial army meant to fight colonial wars for annexation. He aimed at converting it into a professional army capable of holding its own in any modern war. The credit for the excellent performance of the Indian Army in the First World War goes to Lord Kitchener; it is a glowing tribute to his ingenuity and organizational acumen.
On taking over the reigns, what irked him most was the “duality of control”. The Military Member in the Viceroy’s Council, generally a senior officer of the army, served as the “eyes and ears” on all matters militaries for the Governor General.
The new Commander-in-Chief was not satisfied with this system; he dubbed it as operationally ineffective and remarked that “the present system is faulty, inefficient and incapable of the expansion necessary for any great war”. In his opinion the post of Military-Member could be easily dispensed with and his charter of responsibilities could be merged with that of the Commander-in-Chief.
Lord Curzon was not amenable to these proposals; he not only vehemently disapproved them, but also tried to give a political twist to the entire controversy. British traditions never allowed civilian supremacy to be downgraded vis-a-vis the control over armed forces; and in his opinion what Lord Kitchener was aiming at was nothing short of a “military despotism”. This needed shooting down, he strongly felt.
Refusing to buckle in, Lord Kitchener threatened to resign, if his recommendations were not accepted. The British Cabinet was in a great dilemma. Lord Kitchener was a hero of the British masses; there would be an unprecedented hue and cry if the British Government did not accept his proposals and allowed him to resign.
A compromise formula was worked out by the British authorities, wherein, henceforth the Military Member would not offer his comments on the proposals forwarded by the Commander-in-Chief. He would also be redesignated as “Military Supply Member” and would not even wear military uniform.
Unfortunately, this compromise formula was a nonstarter, since Lord Kitchener refused to spare the services of the officer (Major General Barrow), the Governor-General asked for. In disgust, finally the Governor General Lord Curzon resigned. The issue of “dual control” coolly devoured the dynamism and spirits of a brilliant Viceroy!
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Lord Kitchener’s triumph over this issue is sometimes interpreted as military subversion of civil authority, but this is far from the truth. It is an erroneous interpretation. What he actually fought against was “dual control”. His proposals acted as catalysts and they sharpened the edges of the overall apparatus which provided clues to a meaningful exercise of civilian supremacy over military matters.
Has the rationalization stood the test of time? Lieutenant General S.K. Sinha, the soldier-statesman of the Indian Army (presently the Governor of Assam), sums it up appropriately: “The rationalization introduced at the instance of Kitchener stood the test of time for over four decades and stood the Indian Army in good stead during two world wars. Post-1947 the Indian Defence Organization reverted to some of the ills of pre-Kitchener era, but that is a different story.”
In this brief write-up, I have tried to bring forth the master-stroke played by Lord Kitchener in 1902. Unfortunately, his successors allowed the grip to be lost without pondering over the deleterious effect it would have on the smooth functioning of the armed forces.
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Multiple posts of the same material make life a little less interesting. Public memory cannot possibly extend that long, there just aren’t too many people who are at least a 130 to share such public memory. It does not matter to the country any more what Kitchener cooked up and Curzon cursed. Who among us can reel off the names of British viceroys that an elder generation could as they were taught in school like my late mother was?
Free India crafted a history around the freedom movement with colonial officials as bit players whose sole business was to periodically send our nationalist heroes to jail, massacre unarmed Indians as in Jallianwala Bagh and display their bravery by hunting our forest wildlife almost to the point of extinction. No British history is taught, unlike the practice in the dominions which see Britain as the mother country, while for us it is just another country which happens to share a language – English – with us.
Democracy is our greatest strength and we have successfully maintained civilian control over our armed forces which is at it should be in a democracy. Building our defence capabilities does not and must not mean that we are in a race for territory like China. The armed forces are meant to keep a keen eye on our borders,at a time when terrorist outfits pose a major threat to security. Our objective has to be to forestall conflicts and resultant fatalities, not to enter into conflicts, least of all between our civilian and military bureaucracies.
Civilian control is useless if it suffocates professionalism, competence and preparedness of forces to respond security challanges facing the country.
Kitchener won a pyrrhic victory. He was made the Military Member (equivalent to today’s Defence Minister.) Curzon’s resignation was engineered and his subsequent career suffered. But, crucially, Military Finance was taken away from Kitchener and placed under the Finance Member (equivalent to today’s Finance Minister.) All those who are interested in Higher Defence Organisation in India should read about the Curzon – Kitchener controversy.