An army of occupation: A bureaucratic

view of the military

Lt-Gen Harwant Singh ( Retd)

Many defence analysts are of the view that had the Kashmir war not
started in 1947, in less than a decade the Indian army would have been
reduced to a constabulary. When the subject of modernization of the army
was raised with Nehru, it is believed that he responded by saying that, if
need be, the army should be prepared to fight with 'lathies.'

Kashmir operations not withstanding, the plan to systematically and

persistently downgrade the military was put into operation and by 1962
much had been achieved. The political class had come to believe that they
had ascended an era of peace, free of international power politics, strategic
power play and the role of military power to protect national interests had
become minimal. It was a utopian world where reason and dialogue were
believed to be the ultimate tools for the resolution of clash of interests and
conflict situations. Though the Chinese did give a severe jolt and tried to shake
our leadership out of their world of make belief, it succeeded only partially,
because when 1965 came we found ourselves, militarily inferior to
Pakistan in many key areas.

There was a pathological dislike of the Indian military

by the congress party which came to power at the centre
on attaining independence. Herein rests the answer to the
military's down-gradation in so systematic and persistent a manner soon
after independence! The Bureaucracy exploited this bias of the congress to
the hilt and added to it the fear and the possibility of a military take over
as had occurred in some of the neighbhouring countries. It also managed
to restructure the higher defence set-up to the nation's overall strategic
disadvantage.

Gen O P Malhotra as Chief of Defence Staff, in a note to the RM in 1981 raised

the issue of down grading of service officers in the warrant of precedence
( which bears on pay etc as well ) and that these down-gradations coincided
with the termination of every war ( 1948,62,65, and 71. ) and this had
seriously effected the morale of armed forces. A committee of three
secretaries periodically revise the warrant of precedence, which is rubber
stamped by the supreme commander of the armed forces, who is not known to
have even once raised a query on this regular assault on the officers of his
forces.

In response to Gen OP Malhotra's objection, the committee of secretaries

recorded, 'military officers were placed unduly high in the old warrant of
precedence, presumably as it was considered essential for officers of
army of occupation to be given special status and authority.' While it
appeared to be an independent perception of a few babus, the political class,
either had a similar view or were indifferent to bureaucratic machinations. Of
all the people of this world, we Indians, who have been under the heels of
armies of occupation for more than two thousand years, should know what such
armies are like. To call Indian army of the 20th century (1900 to1947) an army
of occupation was blasphemous.

Congress resolution of 1942 stated ' The present Indian

Army is an off-shoot of the British Army and has been maintained
to mainly hold India in subjugation. It has been completely
segregated from the general population.' These were the very
years in which the British used police and not the army to
ruthlessly crush the 'Quit India movement' and that Lala Lajpat Rai
fell to police 'lathies' and not an army bullet. Yet the Congress
heaped this ignominy on the military.

From end 1939, the Indian army was out of India and nearer home
involved in a desperate fight to keep the Japanese at bay. The congress
leadership in 1942 had no experience of state craft or state power and
could only accuse, agitate and was scared to name the police and found
army a distant and easy target.

Segregation of military from the local population was nothing new. It was an
essential requirement for maintaining discipline and professionalism. Even
within Indian forts, the soldiers quarters were segregated from the rest. The
concept of 'Chawanies' ( cantonments ) in India was first introduced by
Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Residences and offices of senior civil servants too were
located in British cantonments established well away from civil population.

Gen Malhotra pointed out that on the other hand, this committee of babus while
expounding the theory of 'army of occupation' failed to realize that a high
place was accorded to the civil servants in the colonial bureaucracy, because
they were the trusted paladins of the imperial power. It was the British P.M,
Lloyd George, who referred to the ICS as the steel frame of the British to
control India. It was the civil services and the police who were the
instruments of oppression and were the willing and enthusiastic tools
employed to crush the nationalist upsurge, fervour and the freedom
movement. Recall that incident in Lahore where the police arrested a
'Tongawala' whose only crime was that he urged his lazy horse to move faster:
at Hitler's speed. (chal Hitler di chaley). Police and civil services were more
loyal than the king.

The Indian Army held NW frontier for a hundred years and prevented those
wild tribes from across the Hindu Kush Mountains from making periodic
forays into the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Later it fought a savage war in the jungles
of Burma and finally stemmed, at Imphal and Kohima, the Japanese assault on
India. The Japanese army was barbaric in the extreme and our people in the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands and POWs, had a taste of its brutality.

It is the mutinies in the Army and Navy which threw a

clear signal to the British that it was time to leave. So it
is highly malicious for anyone to term Indian Army as
army of occupation. Consider this. The Indian government, in the
first 50 years of independence, has deployed the Indian army to quell riots,
maintain order etc 10 times more than the British did in their last 50 years
of their rule in India. So much for the poor governance we have had all
these years. A soldier is under oath and fealty to the constitution/ government
of the day. There can be no grounds for him to break his oath. That is why the
INA troops, and those of the Navy and Army who mutinied, could not be taken
back into service after independence.

However, the suspicion injected deep into the political mind of a

military take over lingers. Moreover the political class continues to be in the
grip of the bureaucracy or as Nirad C Chaudhury puts it so succinctly, 'the
political leadership is helplessly flapping its wings against the bars of the
cage in which the bureaucracy has placed it.'

This down gradation of the military officers was even taken into
armed forces headquarters, where a civilian officer in the appointment of
Director equated with a Lt-Col / Col, was suddenly equated with a
brigadier. This completely distorted the working equations at armed forces
headquarters and had adverse impact on the working at Sercive Headquarters.
Gen Rodriques, as Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee lodged a strong
protest with the RM, against this chicanery of the bureaucracy, but the
protests fell on deaf ears and political class appeared helpless against
continued assault on the military.

Since the down-gradation of the military is continuing to this day: 6th

CPC being the latest manifestation of this six decade old policy,
presumably the Indian military is still being perceived as an army of
occupation. Military service has become so unattractive that few want to join it
and those inside want to quit. 15 of the brightest colonels of the army have
declined to sign up for the Higher Command Course, which is an essential
stepping stone for promotions to higher ranks. In the last two years over 2000
officers have sought release from service, which includes brigs and generals. Is
there similar leakage of talent in the civil services!

Indian army has been in, 'no war no peace,' state since
independence. Wars apart, army has lost 569 officers
and over 9000 JCOs and other ranks in counter
insurgency operation during the last ten years. While
there is little value for human life in India, the value of
soldier's life count for nothing in this country.
Therefore, one wonders whose army it is anyway and
who will soldier for India!

We have the ambition to be a world economic

power, but the vision and will of a third world country
when it comes to creating strategic capabilities. Given the
geo-strategic environments of the region and India's unwillingness to rise to
meet the emerging challenges, the picture is getting fairly grim by the day. To
complete that picture one may add the factor of de-
motivation of country's armed forces.

gen_harwant@ hotmail.com

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