And the SF accept the hot potato as a military challenge time and again, without murmur, with very little thought or opinion on the basic causes of discontent, not even daring to whisper in the government ear as to why matters have been permitted to reach the sorry pass. Government security agencies are obedient, subservient to civil authority. True all the way, and as it should be, and as is etched in both Constitution and service ethos.But what about loss of life of our citizens, are they less important than the constitution and service ethos? Is the use of force, kill and be killed activity the only important factor in resolving discontent and resistance by the aggrieved as most intellectuals, commentators and the media seem to suggest?
Shouldn’t the military, the SF who do the actual killing as part of their ‘management of violence’ and who have a better, wider, more humanistic view and opinion, therefore, also carry the duty of advising, cautioning and restraining the government against authorizing use of killing force and legally covering the same?
Isnt it time that the military started cautioning, advising and asserting with the government, and the government”¦
It is indeed paradoxical that development, progress etc. have to be accompanied by the police replacing rubber bullets with lead ones, and instead of aiming below the knee have to raise the aim to the chest to cope with genuine discontent on account of ‘development’! This can hardly be termed a democratic way of resolving discontent and deprivation of sections of our own people- peripherals! T
he military (also the SF) man is considered to be the epitome of courage, besides bravery. Then why doesn’t he use his courage to sound the government, the civil authority, to caution it, ask for good governance, and assert that opinion? Which would reduce the menace of discontent by half, obviate the need to wage war on our own people and during peace time, and avoid the spree of killing and being killed. When an old military leader utters the need for good governance all the estates, first to the fourth, swoop on him accusing him of transgressing his limits, of entertaining ‘ideas’.
What ideas? Of military coup? Military insubordination? This is a curse of disastrous Nehruvian legacy of distrust of the serviceman, doubting the serviceman’s grey matter, his core national values of the new era, and his diligent acceptance of the same in wholehearted practice, unlike most other segments of society. The elected representative and the politician, who run berserk exploiting the new era, seem to be afraid of the apolitical, disciplined, dedicated and fair-playing military, but yet rely on it totally to bail them out of the chaos and depredation perpetrated by them, as the military does its duty, dirty or dangerous, irrespective of its own predicament. That provides all the reasons to perpetuate Nehruvian curse.
In the process the military (and also the SF) holds itself, aloof, treating the politician and the bureaucrat with contempt, and keeps away from showing advisory, cautionary, forewarning interest for good governance. Internal disturbance tends to become a business more police, more weapons, more money, extortion, blackmail, corruption.
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But why the civil authority’s distrust and the military’s contempt? Even after these sixty years, five wars, fifty years and more of counterinsurgency operations across the country, and foreign experts commenting on the strange and unwholesome civil-military relations? Are the civil authority and the military such confirmed, adamant hardcore prisoners of their mutual prejudices that the senseless loss of lives and limbs of their own people are of lesser consequence? Isn’t it time that the military started cautioning, advising and asserting with the government, and the government started giving a close hearing to and integrating military view?
Prolonged involvement of the military (and the SF) is internal wars alienates people, affects public support in external war, while brutalizing the sarkari weapon-wielder. Good governance and caring for the peripheral are essential for real peace and security.
Is it all that vital to uphold ‘development’, industrial and mining ingress, natural resource grabbing and ruthless exercise of government’s eminent domain at the cost of the peripheral’s dispossession, deprivation, alienation and well-being he expects in the new era? At the cost of waging war on our own people? What kind of cost accounting is this GDP growth through resources grabbing from the peripheral versus human weal of the deprived and the disposed and the threatened? Is this GDP favouring zero sum game necessary? Doesn’t it make a mockery of our tall talk of democracy, public weal, uplift of the poor and integration of the peripheral, even as we wage war against them?
May be the military (and the SF) has to become more and more assertive, more and more responsible in its wider national internal security context, while the government distances itself from the Nehruvian legacy, becomes more receptive and responsive to military advice and opinion in matters of internal security and good governance. That way lives will be saved. Both need to evolve platforms, forums and conventions to more fruitfully and effectively interact with each other and obviate waging war on our own people in favour of GDP growth, wealth building, national prejudices and ideological obstinacy.
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