After INS Sindhuratna tragedy, is it time for Antony to quit?

The instant acceptance of Admiral DK Joshi’s resignation from the post of Navy Chief after the accident on board INS Sindhuratna now raises the question whether Defence Minister AK Antony should take responsibility and quit. At least 20 sailors have died and damage has been caused to a range of vessels in a series of recent accidents involving the Indian Navy. What has also resurfaced following the resignation of the naval chief is the serious trust deficit that is is believed to have continued to widen between the civilian and the military leadership with Antony at the helm. [caption id=“attachment_1411703” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Defence Minister AK Antony. PTI[/caption] “AK Antony is a nice man but certainly he is not suitable to be the defence minister,” former Uttarakhand chief minister and BJP leader Maj Gen (Retd) BC Khanduri told CNN-IBN during a panel discussion on the show India at 9. Khanduri also strongly criticised the bureaucracy for failing to understand views from a military standpoint. “The way defence services are run in the country has been suicidal. The bureaucracy has all the powers. There is absolute lack of confidence between the two,”  he said. “There is a sickening arrogance on the part of the bureaucracy. The system should be pro-nation and not pro-bureaucracy. The bureaucracy who sits in the driver’s seat is without accountability but arrogance. We must get out of this civil-military syndrome and think of national interest,” Khanduri said. Unwilling to accept that the services are alone to be blamed alone for all the mishaps and loss that they suffer, defence security analyst Brigadier (Retd) V Mahalingam felt that the people in the top echelon in the Ministry of Defence are more accountable. “The defence minister should take responsibility for slow procurement of weapons and equipment. Why was he sitting on proposals for new equipment for years being the longest serving defence minister of the nation? Take the example of the Chetak and Cheetah helicopters of the Indian Army. They are all museum pieces,” said Mahalingam. He also agreed with Khanduri that there is a “massive trust deficit between the defence ministry and defence services”. With over 100 accidents in the Indian Air Force during his 10 years as defence minster, most of the panelists on the show were unanimous that Antony should be accountable as well. “The resignation of Admiral Joshi is a big loss for the Indian Navy. It is quite natural for the Chief of the Naval Staff to be disturbed as the head of the naval family when such an accident happens. Why did the defence minister not prevent him from quitting? The Ministry of Defence is responsible as a whole. Admiral Joshi was made the scapegoat because of the failure of the defence ministry. The allegations against the Admiral were exaggerated,” said Commodore (Retd) GJ Singh representing Ex-servicemen League, Karnataka. Senior journalist Manoj Joshi also pointed out to the sore relationship that exists between the military and the civilian bosses. “The secretary (defence production) is responsible upgradation that happens in the dockyard. The navy gets the ships back after the upgradation is over. If there is a problem soon after the upgradation there is a clear need to haul up the bureaucracy and make them accountable too. There is no doubt that a poor relationship exists between the military and civilian side. The worst part is politicians have sided with the bureaucracy widening the trust deficit,” Joshi said. Unhappy with the defence minister’s role, he said, “Antony should have consulted the Cabinet Committee on Security and effort should have been made to prevent Admiral from resigning.” “Antony was there to fix the system but he did not succeed. In fact, there was conspiracy within the bureaucracy to plant stories in the media against Admiral Joshi. The former naval chief was an upright blunt character and the babus didn’t like it,” he said. However, Congress spokesperson CR Kesavan, who was part of the discussion tried his best to defend the defence minister. “We are trying to question what Admiral Joshi said in his letter. He clearly said that the government had reposed faith in him but he chose to quit taking moral responsibility. If there was a conspiracy to remove him people won’t have waited for 10 incidents to happen. By asking the defence minister to quit you are demoralising the forces,” Kesavan said.