In my three decades of reporting on the Indian military, I have never
felt more uneasy about the military-media interface as I have in the past three
months.
Not because the media has been accused of being sensationalist or because
many unsavoury truths about internal rivalry and groupism in the military brass
has created bad blood in the top hierarchy.
My unease stems from the damage that events of the past few months have
inflicted on the average Indian soldier.
While all dramtis personae are equally culpable in the current
controversy, we in the media certainly have a greater responsibility not to add
fuel to the fire.
For at least a quarter century now, we have been lamenting the steadily
diminishing status of the ordinary Indian soldier in the society.; that
soldering is no longer respected as a nobel profession in our rural areas; that
the jawan struggles to get his due from the civil administration increasingly
contemptuous and apathetic towards him; that he continues to get poorly paid
and unfairly treated by a society solely driven by materialism.
Now, following a spate of reports based on half-truths and outright lies,
motivated by God alone knows what, we may have done the ultimate disservice to
the Indian soldier: planted the seed of suspicion about his loyalty in the minds
of ordinary Indians.
While I will defend the right of every media person to report what he or
she thinks is right, I am afraid none of us has thought through the consequences
of the effect it will have on the psyche of the Indian soldier and more
importantly the way ordinary Indians will view the Indian Army.
In the mad race to boost our circulation and viewer ratings, we may have,
in one go, started the process of demolishing one last institution that has
stood rock solid in defence of idea that is India.
For the first time in my now reasonably longish career in journalism, I
feel like hiding from my friends in the military.
I feel we have not paused to think of the long-term damage we have
wrought upon the profession of soldiering.
I say this because from disaster relief in floods, tsunami, and
earthquakes to rescuing infant Prince from a deep tube well and from quelling
rioters in communal strife to being the last resort in internal
counter-insurgency operations, the Indian Army has been
omnipresent.
It is, what I call, India’s Brahmaastra (the ultimate
weapon).
The versatility, adaptability, selfless attitude and resourcefulness of
the Indian Army has allowed it to be what it is today: Nation
Builders.
And viewed in the context of India’s immediate and extended
neighbourhood, its stellar role stands out in stark contrast to its counterparts
in other countries.
Remember, Indian and Pakistani Armies originated from the same source,
the British Army and yet, six decades since they parted ways, there couldn’t be
a bigger dissimilarity in the way the two have evolved.
As they say, India has an Army while the Pakistani Army has a
nation!
More importantly, despite India’s increasing dependence on the Army to
pull its chestnuts out of fire time and again, the Indian Army has scrupulously
remained apolitical.
The contribution of the Indian Army in nurturing and strengthening
democracy—with all its faults—can never be underestimated.
It has put down fissiparous and secessionist forces within India with
great cost to itself over these 60 years. It has protected India from within and
without.
The Indian army also has a unique distinction of helping create a nation
(Bangladesh) in the neighbourhood and then quietly walking away to let the
people take charge.
By contrast, the Pakistani Army has never really allowed democracy to
flourish in its country. Instead, it has created a military-industrial complex
that has spread its tentacles in every aspect of governance. Even today, the
Pakistani army does not let go of any opportunity to undercut democracy; it
nurtures and treats jihadi elements as its strategic asset against India and the
United States.
Even in other smaller nations around India—Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh,
for instance—the armed forces have had to intervene and run the affairs of those
countries at some point.
The Army has also withstood systematic assault on its status from
politicians and bureaucrats who are forever looking for ways to downgrade the
military’s status. While the principle of civilian supremacy over the armed
forces is well entrenched and understood in India, what is incomprehensible is
the constant chipping away at the military’s standing.
The nation as a whole and indeed the people at large have the highest
regard and affinity for the men in uniform for the yeoman service they render in
every conceivable situation, but most mandarins in the Ministry of Defence and
some of the politicians do not have the same opinion and are repeatedly trying
to run down the military without realising the immense damage they cause to the
only available bulwark we have against any attempt to Balkanise India. Now
unfortunately, even we in the media seem to have joined these ill-informed and
devious bunch of opportunists.
As former Chief of army Staff, Gen. S. Padmanabhan says in his book, A
General Speaks: Even after Independence, India’s political leaders found it
convenient to keep the Army, Navy and the Air Force out of the ‘policy’ making
bodies. The service HQs were left at the level that the British left them—that
of being ‘attached offices,’ of the Ministry of Defence. Even at the level of
Defence Minister and Service Chiefs, exchanges on major matters of Defence
policy were few and far between…”
Another former Army Chief, Gen. Shankar Roy Choudhury has observed: “It
is… essential in the national interest that the armed forces are upgraded and
updated on an ongoing basis, something which governments have been traditionally
loath to acknowledge and undertake, the Indian government perhaps more so than
others in this respect.
”Historically, it is to the credit of the Indian Army that it has fulfilled its role as an organ of the state…It has functioned effectively in every type of role, in spite of the general lack of a supportive government environment by way of adequate finances, resources, equipment, personnel policies, or higher political direction.”
A nation’s military provides what is called a ‘hard-edged’ backup to its
international standing. A strong military and especially a powerful,
well-trained, fully equipped army act as a deterrent against adversaries. It is
therefore essential that the nation’s decision-makers consciously back the Army
and provide it with the support that it needs to meet diverse challenges that
exist and are likely to come up in the coming decade.
So far, the Indian Army has fulfilled its role in nation building
admirably well. All of us, ordinary citizens, media persons, politicians,
bureaucrats, must continue to back the nation’s strongest asset and further
strengthen it, if we desire to see India as a global player in the decades to
come.
Centuries ago, Kautilya, the wily old strategist told king Chandragupta
why the soldier is important for the survival of the Kingdom. If India has to
survive as a nation-state, this advice (reproduced from a piece written by Air
Marshal SG Inamdar for the USI Journal) is worth repeating in its entirety
here.
As the learned Air Marshal says:” It is amazing how clearly those
ancients saw the likely fault lines in governance, the intricacies of management
of the military by the state functionaries, the nature of the military and the
citizenry and the close interplay between them all. It is truly amazing how
those observations continue to be so completely relevant today, even after 2000
years.”
Here’s what Kautilya told the king of Magadh:
- Kautilya
“The Mauryan soldier does not himself the Royal treasuries enrich nor
does he the Royal granaries fill. He does not himself carry out trade
and commerce nor produce scholars, thinkers, littérateurs, artistes, artisans,
sculptors, architects, craftsmen, doctors and administrators. He does
not himself build roads and ramparts nor dig wells and reservoirs. He does not
himself write poetry and plays, paint or sculpt, nor delve in metaphysics, arts
and sciences. He does not do any of this directly as he is neither gifted,
trained nor mandated to do so.
The soldier only and merely ensures that:
The tax, tribute and revenue collectors travel far and wide unharmed and
return safely;
The farmer tills, grows, harvests, stores and markets his produce
unafraid of pillage & plunder;
The trader, merchant and moneylender function and travel across the
length and breadth of the realm unmolested;
The savant, sculptor, painter, maestro and master create works of art,
literature, philosophy, astronomy and astrology in peace &
quietitude;
The architect designs and builds his Vaastus without
tension;
The tutor (‘acharya’), the mentor (‘guru’) and the priest (‘purohit’)
teach and preach in tranquility;
The sages (‘rishis, munis, and tapaswees’) meditate and undertake penance
in wordless silence;
The doctor (‘vaidyaraja’) tends to the ill and the infirm well, adds to
the pharmacopoeia, discovers new herbs and invents new medical formulations
undisturbed;
The mason, the bricklayer, the artisan, the weaver, the tailor, the
jeweller, the potter, the carpenter, the cobbler, the cowherd (‘gopaala’) and
the smith work unhindered;
The mother, wife and governess go about their chores and bring up
children in harmony and tranquility;
The aged and the disabled are well taken care of, tended to and are able
to fade away gracefully and with dignity; cattle graze freely without being
lifted or harmed by miscreants.
He is thus the VERY BASIS and silent, barely visible CORNERSTONE of our
fame, culture, physical well-being and prosperity; in short, of the entire
nation building activity. He DOES NOT perform any of these chores himself
directly: he ENABLES the rest of us to perform these without let, hindrance or
worry (‘nirbhheek and nishchinta’).
Our military sinews, on the other hand, lend credibility to our
pronouncements of adherence to good Dharma, our goodwill, amiability and
peaceful intentions towards all our neighbour nations (‘sarve bhavantu
sukhinaha, sarve santu niramayaha…’) as also those far away and beyond. These
also serve as a powerful deterrent against military misadventure by any one of
them against us.
If Pataliputra reposes each night in peaceful comfort, O King, it is so
because she is secure in the belief that the distant borders of Magadha are
inviolate and the interiors are safe and secure, thanks to the mighty Mauryan
Army constantly patrolling and standing vigil with naked swords and eyes peeled
for action (‘animish netre’), day and night (‘ratrau-divase’), in weather fair
and foul, dawn-to-dusk-to-dawn (‘ashtau prahare’), quite unmindful of personal
discomfort and hardship, loss of life and limb, separation from the family, all
through the year, year after year (‘warsha nu warshe’).
While the Magadha citizenry endeavours to make the State prosper and
flourish, the Mauryan soldier guarantees that the State continues to EXIST! He
is the silent ’sine qua non’ of our very being!”
Can we all—people in uniform, civil services, politics, media and society
at large– imbue this spirit?
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