On the Declining Status of the Indian Armed Forces
Shashi Tharoor
April 21, 2016.
For better or worse, force is the guarantor of a nation’s security. It protects the nation from threats extending beyond or within its borders. The Indian armed forces act as the guardian of the legitimacy enjoyed by the government through the spirit of the democratic process. The officers of our armed forces swear “true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution of India upon enrolment in the military.
But do (we), the political establishment, show the same faith and allegiance towards our uniformed citizens?
I fear not. Petty slights, ranging from deliberately downgrading the military in protocol terms, to persistent actions to lower the status and compensation of our military personnel, have eroded the dignity of the Indian armed forces. The consequences will inevitably be suffered by all.
The armed forces are among those very few citizens of India who, at a moment’s notice, might be (READ 'are') summoned to sacrifice their lives in the service of their country.
The 15 lakh servicemen constitute approximately 30% of central government employees.
A file photo of soldiers of the Indian Army.
However, with each Central Pay Commission (CPC), the seventh of which was released last year, we have proven to be blind to their enduring sacrifice. We have short-changed the remuneration of our armed servicemen. One such change put forward in the CPC is the status of Brigadiers, who, until the 3rd CPC, were granted a higher salary than the deputy inspector general (DIG) of the police. Today, Brigadiers are equated to the deputy inspector general, and, after the implementation of the 7th CPC, will be relegated to a lower pay scale than DIGs. These changes defy reason: only 2% of defence officers achieve such a rank, which is only received after 12 more years of service than the designation of DIG.
The result is that longer service in the Indian Army is rewarded with less compensation than fewer years of service in the police force. What could possibly justify such a disparity?
7th Central Pay Commission
The 7th CPC also recommends, among other things: -a separate pay matrix and -disability pension policy for defence forces, which largely disadvantages the defence personnel in favour of higher allowances for their civilian counterparts. According to the 7th CPC, disabled junior commission officers in the IAF are given Rs 12,000 as a disability pension while the equivalent civilian with the same level of disability draws over twice that amount (Rs 27,690).
Disabled junior Commission Officers
are given Rs 12,000 as pension.
A civilian with the same level of disability
is given Rs 27,690.
But remuneration, as delineated in the CPC, is but one facet of a larger trend of diminishing the status of our servicemen. The Order of Precedence is the official hierarchy of the Republic of India. It denotes the rank of government officials in the ceremonial protocol; an important point of pride and status for all government servants. By codifying government’s official rankings, it is a convenient illustration of the inconvenient reality of the lowered status of our military personnel.
Since 1947, subsequent to every Indian military victory (1947-8, 1965, and 1971), our military officers have been marginalized further and further down the Order of Precedence.
Post 1962
After the 1962 Indo-China war, the three Chiefs of Staff were put below the newly created Cabinet Secretary. The Major Generals were equated to a rank below the Director of the Intelligence Bureau.
Post 1965
After the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, the Chiefs of Staff were further downgraded below the Attorney General.
1968
In 1968, Major Generals were placed below the Deputy Controller and Auditor-General.
1971
In 1971, the Service Chiefs came below the Comptroller and Auditor-General (both of whom were previously below Lieutenant General). Similarly, Lieutenant Generals have been placed below the Chief Secretaries, who were previously ranked lower than Major Generals.
With each war came the deaths of countless of our nation’s children, who gave the ultimate measure of devotion in service of their nation.
The changes to the Order of Precedence and the growing disparity in salary suggests that we have commemorated their sacrifice and rewarded their efforts with a harsh and unconscionable gift of declined dignity.
Armed forces during the counter-terror operation at Pathankot
Protocol, Policy- Making & Peacekeeping
I still recall in my UN peace-keeping days my astonishment at meeting an Indian delegation wherein an experienced and impressive Brigadier had to cede place to a less-informed Director-rank civilian from the MEA, purely on grounds of protocol. It taught me a great deal about what was wrong with our policy-making on peacekeeping. Issues of status and remuneration might appear trivial, but they augur ill for the future well-being of the country.
The Army is not as attractive a career option for the next generation as it was for their forebears.
The armed forces are already arm-wrestling with the invisible hand of the market to capture the available talent and capacities of the younger generation. But their ability to recruit young citizens is, ironically, undermined by the very economic development that they guarantee though keeping our nation secure.
The armed forces are as critical to guaranteeing the safety of the nation in this century as in the last. Conventional wars over territorial disputes may appear improbable today. But make no mistake, while we are not at war, we are also not at peace.
The 21st century marks the beginning of a protracted era of geopolitical volatility that presents itself as an illusion of peace to the complacent. We have an unresolved border issue with China, continuing hostilities conducted by “non-state actors” from Pakistan, militants in Kashmir and the northeast, and the ever-present threat of terrorism
The lowering of status and remuneration of the Indian armed forces is an attack on the very insurance that guarantees the liberties endowed to all citizens of India. We must empower our officers and soldiers and grant them the position of prominence they deserve. Revising the errors in the 7th Pay Commission decisions and in the Order of Precedence would be a good place to start.
(Former UN under-secretary-general, Shashi Tharoor is a Congress MP and author)
It wouldn't take much for terrorists to wreak havoc in London - just a simple explosive and some industrial waste. Such is the gruesome reality of the dirty bomb.
Fears of a terrorist attack on the UK by Islamic extremists are running at an all-time high.
The discovery of the deadly poison ricin in a London flat has heightened concerns and recently Tony Blair said it was not a case of "if" but "when".
"We'd have contaminated air moving across London with no indication it's there "
Graham Smith, Enviros
One frightening possibility is the so-called dirty bomb - a crudely-made device that combines a simple explosive with any radioactive material. The idea is that the blast disperses the radioactive material willy nilly. The dirty bomb is perhaps the least understood of all terror weapons, but new research by BBC Two's Horizon programme brings home the full horror of how a dirty bomb attack might affect London.
The dirty bomb is sometimes called the "poor man's nuclear weapon". But whereas the aim of a nuclear bomb is instant and outright destruction, a dirty bomb would have an entirely different effect. It would wreak panic in built-up areas, see large areas contaminated and closed off and result in long-term illnesses such as cancer, caused by the dispersed radioactive material attacking living cells. Using sophisticated modelling, experts commissioned by Horizon constructed a scenario around a radioactive material called caesium chloride, which in the old Soviet Union was used in seed irradiating.
Much of this and other radioactive material used by the Soviets is now unaccounted for. No one knows whether it has fallen into unsafe hands
Particles disperse
Experts working for Enviros, a consultancy that advises nuclear authorities around the world, modelled a fictional explosion combining a handful of caesium chloride - equivalent to the contents of one Soviet seed irradiating machine - with 10lbs of explosive.
JOSE PADILLA
Arrested in May 2002 at Chicago airport in the US
Also known as Abdullah al-Mujahir, he is accused of planning a dirty bomb attack on America
He has been called an al-Qaeda operative
They then "placed" the fictional bomb in Trafalgar Square. The blast itself might kill 10 people immediately. As the emergency services arrived at the scene of the incident a few minutes later, they would realise this was no ordinary blast. "The simple buoyancy of the air that's been heated may carry the radioactive material tens of metres up into the air," says Graham Smith, of Enviros. Almost immediately, millions of tiny flakes of caesium chloride would be floating in the breeze over London. In seconds, depending on the direction of the wind, the plume could reach Whitehall. A minute later Charing Cross, then the City and within half an hour radioactive smoke could reach London's suburbs - 10 kilometres away. "We've got contaminated air moving across London and there would be no indication that contamination was there," says Mr Smith.
As the air began to cool, the particles would fall on people who are completely unaware of the danger around them. They would settle on parks, gardens, pavements and cars.
A TV reconstruction of the Goiania disaster
The worry then is of a cancer time bomb. Every day we are exposed to natural radiation, and in low doses this background level is harmless. Anyone five km from the blast would face only a tiny increased risk of cancer - one in 1,000 - as the background level would be largely unaffected.
But at one km, radiation doses would rise to six times background level, increasing the risk of cancer by about one in 100. At 500 metres downwind from the blast, the risk of dying of cancer from this radiation exposure would be about one in 50 and at 200 m radiation levels would be 80 times background level, equating to a one in seven increased risk of dying of the disease.
The next challenge would be to deal with the contaminated parts of central London. Any clean-up job would be immense and costly, but left undisturbed the particles could remain harmful for 200 years.
Swathes of the city could be cordoned off
One option might be to abandon or demolish parts of the city. But perhaps the biggest immediate threat wrought by a dirty bomb is not the destruction or the threat to life, but its ability to stir blind panic among thousands, maybe millions, of people. A leak of caesium chloride in the city of Goiania, southern Brazil, in 1987 contaminated 200 people. The experience gives a useful template for how other cities might cope. When news of an attack breaks, there will be a clamour for information and help. People will want to know the extent of contamination, but it can be hard to supply answers. In the Brazil example, medical services were swamped as a tenth of the city's population queued for radiation screening. It is the dirty bomb's power to spread fear and spawn chaos that makes it a really effective weapon.
Horizon - Dirty Bomb was on BBC Two on Thursday 30 January at 2100 GMT.
The Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) is pleased to invite you to a discussion with C.J. Chivers on nuclear smuggling in the Middle East. Chivers, a former marine and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigator with the New York Times, has reported from the front lines of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and more, analyzing conflicts and the weapons that fuel them. One of Chivers' recent features, "The Doomsday Scam," revealed how ISIS and other terrorist groups have pursued a fictional weapon-making substance known as red mercury. Chivers, who has been called "the greatest war reporter in a generation," will share his unique insight about the possibilitiy of terrorist groups obtaining nuclear materials, where they could be bought, and how the international community should respond if a terrorist group were to acquire nuclear material, or some other weapon of mass destruction. The discussion will be moderated by Rebecca Hersman, Director, Project on Nuclear Issues, and Senior Adviser, International Security Program, CSIS
ISIS Plans to Unleash Nuclear Terrorism on U.S. soil
Heed this warning! ISIS terrorists are now targeting nuclear facilities in the USA and across Europe, and they hope to unleash massive nuclear terrorism by forcing power plants into criticality events (meltdowns).
Because of this, the open borders policies of liberal politicians in America and the EU amounts to nothing less than NATIONAL SUICIDE.
By allowing ISIS terrorists to walk right into the USA via the totally unprotected southern border, lunatic liberals are creating ready opportunities for terrorists to strike any one of America's hundreds of nuclear power plants, potentially forcing them into nuclear fuel meltdowns that could snowball into devastating radiation poisoning for huge regions of the nation (including many liberal cities).
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeGVUeeCK5M ]
The Dirty Bomb: Is India Safe From The Nuclear Threat
United State Of America's President Barack Obama describes the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on the dirty bomb as the greatest threat the world faces at this time. The worlds intelligence agencies believe that ISIS is working very aggressively towards acquiring a dirty bomb. How real is the threat? and how safe is India's nuclear installations. Listen in. ISIS plans to unleash nuclear terrorism on U.S. soil
PAKISTANI COUPLES HAVE ONLY ONE NATIONAL PASS TIME TO CONCEIVE TERROR IS NATIONAL OBLIGATION
High risk of theft of Pakistan nuclear weapons: US report
Pakistan has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear arsenal, and is shifting toward tactical nuclear weapons, says US report
By: PTI | Washington |
Published:March 22, 2016 10:22 am
A Pakistani Shaheen II missile is displayed during the Pakistan National Day parade in Islamabad, Pakistan (Source: AP Photo)
With Pakistan moving towards tactical nuclear weapons, there is an increasingly higher risk of nuclear theft, a US think-tank report has warned ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit here later this month. “Overall, the risk of nuclear theft in Pakistan appears to be high,” said the report ‘Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Continuous Improvement or Dangerous Decline?’ released by the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School.
“The trend seems to be toward increasing risk, as Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal expands and shifts toward tactical nuclear weapons, while adversary capabilities remain extremely high,” it said. Over the longer term, the possibilities of state collapse or extremist takeover cannot be entirely ruled out, though the near-term probability of such events appears to be low. The report from the Harvard Kennedy School comes a week after a top American diplomat had raised a similar concern. “We’ve been very concerned about Pakistan’s deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons,” US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Rise E Gottemoeller told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a Congressional hearing on Thursday. “Battlefield nuclear weapons, by their very nature, pose security threat because you’re taking battlefield nuclear weapons out to the field where, as, you know, as a necessity, they cannot be made as secure,” Gottemoeller had said. In Pakistan, a modest but rapidly growing nuclear stockpile, with substantial security measures, must be protected against some of the world’s most capable terrorist groups, in an environment of widespread corruption and extremist sympathies, said the Harvard Kennedy School. By some estimates, the Strategic Plans Division, which manages Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, has 25,000 troops available to guard Pakistani nuclear stocks and facilities. Pakistani officials report that sites are equipped with extensive barriers and detection systems, that the components of nuclear weapons are stored separately (though that may be changing as Pakistan moves toward tactical nuclear weapons intended to be rapidly deployed to the field), and that the weapons are equipped with locks to prevent unauthorised use. It said there are negative trends, which may be related to the absence of recent US expressions of confidence. “Pakistan has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear arsenal, and is shifting toward tactical nuclear weapons intended to be dispersed to front-line forces early in a crisis, increasing the risks of nuclear theft in such a crisis,” it said. “This increase in numbers of weapons is probably leading to an increase in numbers of locations as well,” it said, adding that terrorist groups continue to demonstrate that they are willing and able to launch complex, well-coordinated attacks on heavily-defended military targets within Pakistan.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday outlined the nine priority areas for the government that will transform the country. "The agenda for next year is to undertake transformative measures based on 9 pillars for India," finance minister Arun Jaitley said. The nine priority areas of the government are: 1. Agriculture and farmer welfare 2. Rural sector 3. Social sector 4. Education skills and job creation 5. Infrastructure investment 6. Financial sector reforms 7. Governance reforms and ease of doing business 8. Fiscal discipline 9. Tax reforms to reduce compliance burden Surprisingly the finance minister made no mention of India’s defence allocation for 2016-17 in his Union Budget speech on Monday, 29 February 2016. This raised immediate curiosity, over why, the country’s military spending was not revealed. This is in fact the first time when defence allocation has not been revealed during the annual budget speech. Interestingly the budget uploaded on the official web site (indiabudgetnic.in) reveal interesting figures which in no way suggest a rosy pic . A set of four perceptions needs to be deconstructed. First, India is spending much less in comparison to its known adversaries as well as (known) major powers. This is largely true in terms of military expenditure in both current and constant prices. In both terms, the percentage of US military expenditure has come down from 53 to 42 percent in the last five years, while the same has graduated from 8 to 12 percent China in the corresponding period. Many such data based inferences can be drawn. India’s share is slightly below 2 percent of global military expenditure, an improvement from 1.4 percent from 2010. Such figures are confusing for the very simple reason that bulk of military expenses, as provided by countries on a yearly basis, disclose little of their resources allocations and hide some details. Second, at the national level, India is supposedly spending less on national defence. Parrikar deconstructed this notion in his statement in Parliament, unprecedented in the history of budgetary estimates in India. As repeatedly argued in my previous pieces on resources allocations for national defence over a period of time, India’s spending on national defence has been reasonable, keeping in mind our cumulative national resources and priorities.
India’s declared devotion to national defence stands roughly at 14 percent of central government expenditure (CGE) and about 1.7 percent of GDP, which excludes pensions and a few other items. I am told by members from responsible quarters that items like ‘military stores’ contain items that should actually be in ‘capital’ side. Taken together, as Parrikar said, India’s defence budget would account for 2.2 percent of GDP. Please note that last year’s defence pensions was close to Rs 56,000 crore. You have to factor in OROP (Rs 12,000 crore), ex-welfare health insurance (close to Rs 2000 crore) and 7th pay commission liabilities (exact figure yet to be in public domain) in time to come. Such expenses, if included in ‘revenue’ side of expenditure, could actually radically deconstruct our earlier assumptions about a 55 (revenue): 45 (capital) ratio, in favour of revenue expenditure – a horrendously imbalanced national defence budget. Parrikar must be applauded for bringing this anomaly in defence budget calculations. Third, Parrikar’s statements on eight squardons of fighters, emphasises fighter aircraft production through indigenous means, transparent procurement procedures for pruning of capital expenses and abandoning of long-pending and irrelevant purchases, point to one simple point with three connotations – tighten your belt, be ready for collaborative approach but make products and systems here, and most importantly, be ready for a pruned budget. He has already given a hind that against an import bill of Rs 35,000 crore in 2014-15, a Rs 1,000 crore reduction has already been witnessed in 2015-16. This indicative trend is likely to continue till he is at the helm of affairs. Last but certainly not the least, Parrikar, a minister who seems to ask basic questions and has demonstrated a habit of shaking rank and file of organs he heads (sacking of the head of DRDO without much murmur in public, branding armed forces as ‘erratic buyers’, instructing armed forces to review their defence procurement plans, to cite a few), must have advised his colleague Arun Jaitley on what kind of a budget he wants. Participants: Ziauddin (Economist/Analyst) Brig. Ishaq Khattak (Defence Analyst) Host: S. M. Hali
India's Biggest Enemy is its Bureaucracy & ARMED FORCES ARE THE ONLY OBSTACLE BUREAUCRACY HAS TAKEN PAINS TO IMPRESS UPON THE POLITICIANS THAT ORGANISED ARMED FORCES UNDER 'CDS' WILL GO THE WAY PAKISTAN MILITARY HAS GONE, THERE TO CREATING THE DISTRUST WHERE IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DAY DO NOT TRUST ITS OWN SOLDIERS
CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF FOR INDIAN ARMED FORCES IS NOT A BIG BARGAIN PROVIDED CDS IS PLACED UNDER THE DIRECT CONTROL OF BUREAUCRACY. INTER-SERVICES RIVALRY & OBJECTIONS TO CDS IS A BUREAUCRATIC BOGEY TO ENJOY EXTRA COSTITUTIONAL POWERS UNDER THE GAMBIT OF DIVIDE & RULE EVEN WHEN THERE ARE NO DIFFERENCES. FINALLY CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF(CDS) WITHOUT COMMANDER- IN -CHIEF(C-in-C) WILL BE A INCOMPLETE SET UP. CDS WITHOUT C-in -C IS AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY -Vasundhra
Defence Minister Of India Manohar Parrikar talks about the present Defence capability of India and technologically improving the resources to meet our defense needs. Talking at the India Today Conclave, Manohar Parrikar said that Chief Of Defence Staff Is A Must.
India as a nation went through a very traumatic experience in 1962. Our faith in the impregnability of the Himalayas, the infallibility of our foreign policy and the invincibility of our Army, got shattered. I was then an Instructor at Staff College. I was assigned the task of preparing a Telephone Battle exercise for Staff College on mountain warfare, based on our experience in the Himalayas. I toured the battle zone in the North-East to study the terrain and the course of operations that had recently taken place there. This also enabled me to interact with some of the officers who had taken part in those operations.
The tour of the battlefield and research at Staff College,led one
Vital issues of war and peace, concerning the nation were being
dealt with in a casual manner. For instance, in September 1962, on his way to Colombo, the Prime Minister had issued a statement to the Press at Chennai, that he had ordered the Army to evict the Chinese from the Himalayas. The Army Chief then at Tezpur, wanted written orders to that effect. A Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence present at Tezpur gave him those orders. This sequence of events showed the extent to which the Army had been marginalized in the process of decision-making on vital defence matters. What followed is a very painful chapter of our history.
It is worth recalling that after the reverses suffered by them in Boer War, the British carried out extensive reforms in their War Office. At Gallipoli, during the First World War, General Sir Ian Hamilton, commanding the Royal Army, was desperately wanting naval gun fire support but this was not available as the Admiral commanding the Fleet had ordered his warships to clean their boilers!
The Gallipoli disaster taught the British the need for ensuring proper coordination between the Services in battle. The need for this, got further underscored with the emergence of the Air Force as a major partner in battle, whether on land or at sea. There was now need for close professional co-ordination between the three Defence Services. After the First World War, the British introduced a Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), comprising the three Service Chiefs in their Defence High Command. This arrangement was also adopted by other countries. During the Second World War, the concept of a Supreme Commander in all theatres of war was evolved. Within a few years after that War, the appointment of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was made at the national level in all countries, except India. Some countries use different nomenclature for this appointment but the functions assigned are the same.
In India the first recorded instance of higher defence organization flourishing was in the empire of Chandragupta Maurya. According to Megasthenes, the Greek Ambassador in Chandragupta’s court, the Mauryan War Office in the fourth century BC was a combined headquarters for both the Army and the Navy. The Mauryan War Office functioning under the Commander-in-Chief had six boards, each of five officers. These were Infantry, Cavalry, Elephants, Chariots, Admiralty and Commissariat. The War Office looked after a standing Army of nearly three quarters of a million -- 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 9,000 elephants and 8,000 chariots plus an unspecified number of warships. The Mauryan Empire extended from Kashmir to Karnataka and Kamarup to Kabul.
During the British era, India was perhaps the only country in the world which had a single Commander-in-Chief for all the three Services. In 1947, this arrangement was discarded and each Service came to have its own Commander-in-Chief, independent of each other. The nomenclature of the three Chiefs was changed in 1955 from Commanders-in-Chief to Chiefs of Staff. This re-designation has been both meaningless and misleading. In our set up, the Chiefs of Staff are not part of the Ministry. They are not authorized to take any decision on behalf of the Government nor issue any Government orders. These functions are performed by civil officials in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The Service Chiefs continue to function as Commanders-in- Chief of their Service. Thus, it is a misnomer to call our Service Chiefs, Chiefs of Staff.
The debacle of 1962 had failed to motivate us to rationalize our
higher defence organization. Like the Bourborn rulers of France, we had learnt nothing nor forgotten anything. The status quo remained.
However, after the Kargil War a Task Force under Arun Singh, a former Minister of State in the Defence Ministry, was set up to examine India’s higher defence organization. I was the Governor of Assam at that time. Arun Singh asked me for my views on the subject. In my written submission to the Task Force I suggested the appointment of a CDS and for integration of Services Headquarters (SHQ) with the MoD.
While the recommendations of the Task Force on the Management of Defence were accepted by the Group of Ministers, its implementation has been tardy. We have integrated the Services Headquarters with MoD and even re-designated the three SHQs as Integrated Headquarters, Ministry of Defence(Army/ Navy/Air Force). Like the
designation of Chiefs of Staff, this re-designation hardly means anything. Authority in regard to subjects of little consequence, have been delegated to Service Headquarters for integrated functioning but all issues of any consequence are dealt with by the civil officials of MoD. In other words the old arrangement of the civilian bureaucracy exercising authority without expertise or responsibility has continued. Even the suggestion that civil servants in Ministry of Defence should be from the Indian Foreign Service rather than Indian Administrative Service has not been accepted. Defence Policy and Foreign Policy being two sides of the same coin, an officer from IFS is far better suited to serve in Ministry of Defence than an IAS officer. I have been of the view that it will be as illogical to have an IFS officer serving as Home Secretary as it is to have an IAS officer serving as Defence Secretary.
In so far as CDS was concerned, a similar attempt has been made to derail the recommendation of the Task Force, accepted by the Group of Ministers and approved by the Cabinet. A large headless Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) has been provided which serves little purpose. Without a CDS, the required professional co-ordination and unified approach is lacking.
It is worthwhile to examine the arguments used by many, for not having a Chief of Defence Staff in India. Before doing so, it is necessary to take note of the considerations that have been militating against the introduction of this appointment. First, is the political leadership’s fear, of the man on the horse back. It is apprehended that the Defence Services will become too powerful and subvert civilian control over the military, a military coup will occur. Second, the opposition of the civilian
bureaucracy to any arrangement in which their dominance and stranglehold over the higher defence set up is diminished. Third, the feeling among the smaller Services, particularly the Air Force, of Army dominance in defence policy formulation. Some fear that a CDS may lead to a situation like the one that prevailed before 1947,when theArmy was the dominant Service. Fourth,is the inhibitions of servingService Chiefs that their position would get undermined if the CDS wereto be appointed. In a light hearted vein, it is often said that serving Service Chiefs are not enthusiastic about having a CDS but as theirretirement approaches, they get converted to the idea of thisappointment.
The fear that a CDS will erode the supremacy of the civil over the military is unfounded. The CDS will not be a Supreme Commander. Hewill only be an Inter-Service professional coordinator with individual Service Chiefs having the right of direct access to the Head of theGovernment. It also needs to be mentioned that Army Chiefs in different countries have staged military coups but no CDS has everdone so. India’s Defence Services are fully committed to upholding democratic values and in a well established democracy like ours withsuch diversity, and of continental dimension, the question of a military coup does not arise. In the absence of a Chief of Defence Staff, hisfunctions are virtually being performed, less efficiently by other functionaries.
It is said that adequate coordination is being carried out by the existing Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) and this has successfully met ourDefence requirements for the last sixty years. Therefore, the present arrangement should not be disturbed. The annually changing part timeChairman of the COSC is in no position to provide effective professional
coordination and render unbiased military advice to the Government,without any bias for a particular service. In the present arrangement,controversial issues between the Services get swept under the carpetand differences tend to remain unresolved.
Some people maintain that a CDS may be necessary for nations
having global commitments and required to be prepared to fight aglobal war. The requirement for this appointment arises from the factthat modern war cannot be fought by any Service on its own and hasto be a multi-service operation. It has little to do with global orregional nature of a war. Moreover, the huge expenditure on militaryhardware for the three Services has to be put under the scanner toensure that wasteful expenditure or duplication in the Services isavoided. All countries in the world and not only the global players have a CDS.
India should not remain the only country in the world without a CDS. Furthermore, the fact that India is now emerging as a globalpower should not be ignored. The fears of the Navy or the Air Force getting swamped by the Army, which is a much larger Service, are unjustified. The imbalance in the strength of the Services in many countries like Russia, China, Egypt and so, on have not come in theway of their having a CDS. No matter which Service a Chief of Defence Staff may be from, the question of a bias should not arise
when he is not encumbered with the responsibility for looking after his Service. After all even in an individual Service, officers from different streams reaching the top position in their Service have always shown due consideration for other streams. Moreover, a CDS, as in most countries, should be a rotating appointment between the three Services. To put such unfounded fears completely at rest, the first two Chief’s of Defence Staff in India should be from the Navy and the Air Force and only thereafter from the Army
At one stage it was argued that unless there was unanimity among the three Services on having a Chief of Defence Staff, this appointmentcould not be introduced. After the 1971 war, Air Chief Marshal P. C. Lal had threatened to resign if it was decided to have a Chief ofDefence Staff in India. The three Services are said to be now in agreement on this issue. Another hurdle is the requirement that boththe ruling party and the Opposition should be in agreement on this issue. Hopefully, even this hurdle will also be crossed one of thesedays.
None of the arguments against having a CDS are valid. It is high time we in India introduce this appointment and also in due coursehave integrated field commands. This is imperative for efficient, economical and effective functioning of our higher defence organizationin both peace and war. National interests should not be allowed to be held hostage to vested interests.
However, with each Central Pay Commission (CPC), the seventh of which was released last year, we have proven to be blind to their enduring sacrifice. We have short-changed the remuneration of our armed servicemen. One such change put forward in the CPC is the status of Brigadiers, who, until the 3rd CPC, were granted a higher salary than the deputy inspector general (DIG) of the police.
