Defensive of defence
The resignation of Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi as Chief of Naval Staff owning moral responsibility for the mishap aboard an ageing submarine INS Sindhuratna 80km off Mumbai during trials after a refit, comes after the navy under his watch suffered 10 notable marine accidents; most damaging of which was the loss of the submarine INS Sindhurakshak in an explosion on the eve of Independence Day last year. While several of his former seniors from all three services lauded the submariner admiral for demitting office in true military tradition, they were also pointing to the political leadership and its attitude towards the military where fatal accidents, corruption allegations, scandals in official and private behaviour of officers and questionable handling of men and material have made news with some regularity to embarrass a citizenry accustomed to being deferential to its soldiers, sailors and airmen.
For a country that literally started its independent existence countering military adventurism at the Kashmir border and since had to fight four wars and an undeclared one as recent as 1999, and still faces residual challenges from those campaigns at the land borders and threats of terrorist subversion within the borders, it is natural for the military arms to enjoy pride of place in the national psyche. To the world at large, India with some 1.1 million men and women in active service and 960,000 reservists, is the third largest armed forces behind China and USA, but without conscription. However, their admiration ends there, with strategists discounting India’s stature as a world power that it should be because of the “uneven nature of military modernisation, an apparent dearth of grand strategy and a perennially dysfunctional state of bureaucratic paralysis,” as a recent study in London put it.
While it is comforting to think of the armed forces of a peace-loving country as never a threat to the civilian authority unlike in many countries – note the extreme puzzlement over a routine military exercise near Delhi last year being mistaken by the political establishment as preparation for a coup d’etat – India’s land, air and sea arms have been victims of a confusion of peace and necessity. From the first government of Jawaharlal Nehru which fancied India will forever be on a peace offensive until China came trudging menacingly over the Himalayas in 1962, the political leadership has been unsure of how far to arm and manage the three services. The posturing of non-alignment and adherence to Panchsheel (the doctrine of non-interference) conflicted with the strategic vision of the forces which demand continuous upgrade of weaponry and infrastructure. The periodic political concession to that military desire has sadly shown the services as a source or a cause of corruption and influence-peddling that has left many a military and political bigwig red-faced and more.
The pantheon of defence ministers – from peaceniks to activists and opportunists to the disinterested – most of whom served short and uninspiring tenures, is emblematic of the malaise recent mishaps only draw our attention to. All this while a clean-as-whistle A K Antony is about to complete the longest term for a defence minister (eight years), is a reminder that the military is too dynamic an organism to be held back by staus-quoist piety. Future governments must pick efficient parliamentarians with aptitude for military matters as defence ministers the rank and file can look up to if India should get value for money from the huge investment in the armed forces today’s realpolitik demands. Resigning is no answer, kicking a sense of resignation is.
The pantheon of defence ministers – from peaceniks to activists and opportunists to the disinterested – most of whom served short and uninspiring tenures, is emblematic of the malaise recent mishaps only draw our attention to.
