Will India ever learn to care for its soldiers braving icy heights?

Left alone to fend for themselves facing the enemy at sub-zero temperatures in highly inhospitable terrain, Indian troops deployed on the icy heights of Siachen and along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir now stand threatened by already meagre and shrinking budgets. Shocking as it may sound, the government had ordered a 57 percent cut in kerosene supplies for troops due to austerity measures. And kerosene is not a luxury at those heights. It is used for cooking and running the heaters to keep the men on the frontline from freezing. [caption id=“attachment_1342301” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Guarding borders in freezing temperatures. AFP[/caption] “The bureaucrat who has issued such an order has no clue about the life of a soldier in the LoC. The defence secretary has no responsibility because he thinks it is the job of the Army Chief to take care of it. A government which has no respect for Supreme Court orders, will it even bother about what the Army Chief says? The bureaucracy will never understand the life of a soldier,” defence analyst Brig (Retd) V Mahalingam told CNN-IBN during a panel discussion. Another former top ranked officer of the Indian Army said simple soldiers posted in that inhabitable climate feel let down by the  country. “How does a man live in Siachen when there is austerity? This will send a wrong signal to the man on the border. There is a widely held perception that by and large politicians and bureaucrats are not sensitive to the defence community,” said ex-Deputy Army Chief Lt Gen Raj Kadyan. Columnist Ajai Shukla, who was also a part of the discussion, felt that there has to be a thinking from the army’s side as well on the spending they make. “The army has two kinds of budgets – capital and revenue budgets. The revenue budget is 80 percent which is used for maintaining the army. The capital budget is for modernisation. The army needs to prioritise expenditure on modernisation and possible reduction in size in the form of troop cut. If the army keeps raising itself in size it cannot manage everyone better,” Shukla said. The columnist even cited the example of the new Mountain Corps coming up at Panagarh in West Bengal as a needless military expenditure. “Raising a mountain corps now is a total disaster. The existing corps  are not even well-equipped with helicopters, howitzers and other weapons. Rationalisation means cutting down on non-priority areas. There are too many areas in the army where costs can be cut. The soldiers need best equipment and the army has to cut its revenue expenditure,” he said. However, Lt Gen Kadyan did not agree with the suggestion. “Mountains need troops. You need boots to fight a mountain war. We are sharing borders with seven countries and two are adversaries. We need to improve relationships so that the deployment requirement goes down,” he said. Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who has been vocal about these issues in Parliament, finds no reason in making an ordinary soldier a scapegoat. “When you have the army you have to find a way for funding them. There is a total lack of sensitivity in dealings between the political class and the army. Since the army don’t complain, the discipline is actually going against the army. You don’t bring rationalisation in the middle of winter. It has to be slow and has to be across the board in all departments of the government. Rationalisation has to be dealt with by the politicians. Why does a jawan needs to suffer for that?” asked Chandrasekhar pointing to the huge gap between the military and the ruling class. Father of Kargil martyr Captain Vijyant Thapar, Col (Retd) VN Thapar said the army takes utmost care of the bureaucrats whenever they visit military areas but fail to get anything in return. “The bureaucrats are taken care of during their visits to forward areas like Pathankot, Jammu or wherever. If a royal family can send their son in the thick of a battle why can’t the bureaucrats be more concerned about the well-being of the soldiers? Even the martyrs’ families are not given their due. The decision makers need to have a vision for the army,” he said. In a nutshell, Brig (Retd) Mahalingam summed it up: “India needs to respect the ordinary soldier.”