Army politics: Why India needs a collegium to appoint its generals

Militaries of a country are always expected to be prim, proper, disciplined, firm and always on top of the job in no matter what circumstances they operate. When it comes to the top echelons of the armed forces, they have even more responsibility as they are looked up to by numerous men and officers for inspiration under their command and the country in general. Sadly, the Indian Army today is gripped by issues which are largely clerical and should not have occurred at all. Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff Lt Gen Ravi Dastane, who has knocked the doors of the Armed Forces Tribunal recently seeking quashing of the appointments of two of his colleagues Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag and then Western Army Commander Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra, is not the first one to take this course. [caption id=“attachment_1297057” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Think about this soldier. PTI[/caption] Before him, retired General VK Singh was the first to take the route of Statutory Complaint and later on appeal at the Supreme Court when this whole age dispute occurred. This sudden spurt of dissatisfaction and disappointment among the generals is certainly not a healthy sign within the army. What is more serious is that this would quietly make a wrong impression of his superiors on the man who is currently braving the crazy winter in Siachen or waiting for another Chinese intrusion in Arunachal Pradesh. That soldier on the border is unaware of all office politics and succession wars within his organisation. His duty is to smartly shout ‘Jai Hind Saab’ and wait for the enemy ignoring his own safety. Taking cue from the way judges are appointed or for that matter the Lokpal is going to be appointed, it is high time that India consider a collegium consisting of military, strategic, diplomatic, legal and political experts to appoint officers at the level of Army Commanders. This may sound astounding to many for the fear that there would be delay and red-tapism might sneak into the process, but there is a counter argument. As of now the military is already caught in the trap of bureaucrats who call the shots in South Block. Until a file traverses every nook and corner of the power corridor, a small sanction is impossible to seek no matter how urgent the need is. Since we have already scaled the pinnacle of red-tapism, this collegium system would allow much more transparency. Only condition is that the collegium must reach a decision within a stipulated time and must put on public domain why a certain general was appointed. Defence analyst Ajai Shukla in an article in The Business Standard on 8 July 2013, Stop ‘Mandalising’ the military examined in depth the skewed promotion policy that the army employs. “Unlike other organisations, the army has no clear-cut promotion manual where selection criteria are written in stone"— Shukla wrote in his piece . This has clearly resulted in affecting the effectiveness of the army as a combat unit in a multitude of challenging environments. It is expected that the top decision-making posts should be occupied by the best of the brains but in reality it is not the case. “Now pro rata promotion is creeping in. When pro rata was introduced for brigadier rank a decade ago, the policy letter promised a review of the policy later. Today, with no review having been done, a fresh policy letter seeks to extend pro rata to major general rank. The defence ministry can veto this policy, but has chosen to enjoy the spectacle. It has endorsed the army chief’s sidelining of the army commander who steadfastly opposed pro rata. The central army commander, Lieutenant General Anil Chait, who has been kicked upstairs, can only watch powerlessly from the backwaters of the Integrated Defence Staff"— Shukla said in his piece . When the infamous age row of former Army Chief Gen (Retd) VK Singh had crept in, there was a huge talk of a possible succession row in the army. What is this succession row all about? Are the military chiefs running a kingdom where there journey to the top is simply guranteed and not decided on merit? “There is no line of succession in the army. Please stop thinking about it,” General VK Singh had said on 25 May 2012 when asked to comment on allegations that he was trying to affect the line of succession in the force by issuing a show cause notice to Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag, who could be army chief in two years. Lt Gen Suhag had got the show cause notice for an alleged botched up intelligence operation in Assam’s Jorhat. Lt Gen Suhag was then the III Corps commander at Rangapahar in Nagaland’s Dimapur. In fact, because of this show cause notice Lt Gen Suhag automatically came under a discipline and vigilance ban which delayed his elevation as Eastern Army Commander. He could take charge of the Command only after General Bikram Singh vacated the ban. During that interim period, Lt Gen Dastane was eligible for becoming an Army Commander on but was not made one. If this argument stands out, Lt Gen Dastane would technically become Lt Gen Suhag’s senior, who is slated to take over as Army Chief in August. Merry-go-round with the top military posts is not an acceptable situation and this keeps on happening. From fear of a military coup to fondness or disliking of a certain individual, the highest military postings is like a Bollywood script not filmed yet. Former Chief of Army Staff, General VK Singh in his autobiography Courage and Conviction writes thus: “It is no secret that people around Nehru exploited his paranoia of a military coup and started chipping away at the army in an evolving civil-military relationship. The appointment of Baldev Singh as India’s first Defence Minister—a man known for his political ‘fix it’ rather than any military acumen—set the tone for the future. Had Nehru had his way, Field Marshal Cariappa would never have the chief. Subsequently, Thimayya’s popularity as an individual would give Prime Minister Nehru more nightmares than the Chinese on the border. When the attack did come in October 1962, the Indian Army was engaged in ‘Op Amar’ where they were building houses while our ordnance factoties were making coffee percolators. “Thorat, Prem Bhagat, SK Sinha—they were all dumped by the wayside. Indira Gandhi not only inherited the leadership of the country from her father, she too never stopped looking over the shoulder”. It may be easy to ignore what the General wrote as mere rumblings against the Congress. But the truth is that India suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Chinese in 1962 because of a series of ill-informed decisions and blatant disregard of the military chain of command while taking key decisions. The disaster in the name of Operation Bluestar in 1984, which saw 83 Indian soldiers dead and 220 wounded in a single night, was result of a similar brushing aside the chain of command by the top political executive of the country. India needs to plug these massive loopholes in it military on a war footing or else if there is a war in reality we would be found severely wanting. Scary, ain’t it?