SOURCE:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/parrikar-only-added-to-list-of-status-quoists/377081.html
Mar 15, 2017,
Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi (retd)
At the behest of bureaucracy, Parrikar started interfering in the internal affairs of the armed forces, instead of leaving them to the chiefs. It was also during his helmsman-ship that the defence budget touched a nadir, at less than 1.6% of the GDP.
Speculation about the change of the current Defence Minister had been going on even before the recently held elections in many states were announced. With the Goa Governor inviting Manohar Parrikar to form the government, it is no longer speculation.
Parrikar remained Defence Minister for less than two and a half years, which, of course, is just a statistic. More important is how his tenure has been as the political head of the Indian military.Before one carries out an analysis, it may be pertinent to have a look at the task a Minister of Defence is required to perform and how his predecessors have fared.
Since Independence, the country has had a total of 25 defence ministers, of which six were also prime ministers. Like other ministers, there is no fixed tenure for the defence minister, who is appointed or removed by the prime minster. The minister is often assisted by a minister of state for defence and, less commonly, the lower-ranked deputy minister of defence. The first defence minister of independent India was Baldev Singh, who was appointed even in the Interim Government, from September 2, 1946, and then continued after Independence till 1952.
If one were to make a broad statement, it appears to a military person like me that the Indian armed forces have not been singularly lucky in having wise, efficient and professionally knowledgeable defence ministers most of the time. This is despite the fact that the minister has an extremely important role to play in the council of ministers. The reason is that a Defence Minister is a member of the powerful Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) — the earlier avatar was the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs — and which is the highest policy making body in the country on all aspects of national security.
If one were to ask the officials of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) the same question, they will either refuse to commit themselves or express happiness at each one of them, because they continued to rule the roost irrespective of who defence minister was! That, in brief and without any further explanation, is the difference between the outlooks of military and civil officials.
Returning to who has been the most effective defence minister, I will with out any hesitation take the name of Arun Singh, without any hesitation was only a minister of state as Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had kept the portfolio of defence with himself.
The reason was that he appreciated the nuances of security issues; was aware of the requirements of the military and what made it tick; and did not pander to the foibles and intrigues of the generalist bureaucracy.
‘Kicking upstairs’ is a well-known phrase; I wonder if there an expression such as ‘kicking downstairs’! Be that as it may, there is also no clarity relating to the inter se importance between a Cabinet minister at the Centre and a chief minister of a state.
Even in the past, there have been cases of movements to and from the Centre to the states, and vice versa. Sharad Pawar was appointed Defence Minister on June 26, 1991, but in March 1993 he was moved to Maharashtra as chief minister.
When Parrikar took over as defence minister from Arun Jaitley on November 9, 2014, there was a sense of relief as well as optimism. Jaitley, then wearing two hats, had his eyes only on the North Block. The country in general and the military in particular could not understand why these two important ministries had been placed under one incumbent, especially one who had been rejected by the people in the elections and had come by the Rajya Sabha route.
The military welcomed Parrikar for being more professional and technically sound than a politician. They reposed their faith in him and expected that he would ensure a better deal for them; would assist them in regaining their pride and élan that had been severely eroded over the past two decades; and were looking forward to moves towards modernisation that had virtually stopped. However, they were disappointed to see that his party colleagues saw him as a provincial politician and he was unable to change the dispensation or the system.
Parrikar’s tenure as defence minister had its ups and downs; perhaps more of the latter as far as the military is concernedAt the behest of the bureaucracy,he started interfering in the internal affairs of the armed forces, instead of leaving them to the chiefs of the Services, which is rightly their domain. He made somewhat of a mess of the long-pending and highly emotive issue of granting OROP as it was meant to be, because of succumbing to the balderdash of inadequacy of funds — the excuse given by the Finance Ministry as well as bureaucrats of the MoD.
In the bargain, he not only alienated the armed forces but also affected the morale of the forces.
Ultimately, while the military continued to struggle to get their dues in financial terms, the bureaucrats, police and other civil administrative services walked away smugly with all kinds of enhancements, perks and the like. Even the so-called NFU is being denied, despite a judicial ruling on the issue!
Besides financial matters, it was during the helmsman-ship of Parrikar that the plummeting of the defence budget reached a nadir, with less than 1.6 per cent of the GDP being allotted in this year’s budget. That brings down the military to the same level as it existed in 1962, the outcome of which is well-known to the nation. Even in percentage terms, the year-on-year growth of 5.6 per cent is ridiculously low. In the previous year too, it was equally bad. Other parameters on which the defence budget could be assessed are also dismal, e.g., it is only 12.77 per cent of the Central government expenditure (CGE). The Army, Navy and Air Force have received only 60, 67 and 54 per cent, respectively, of the funds they had sought for modernisation. In addition, out of the total outlay of Rs 2.74 lakh crore, only Rs 86,488 crore has been earmarked for modernisation. What makes it worse is that the bulk of this capital outlay will be used to pay “committed liabilities” of earlier arms contracts, instead of new projects.
When a Defence Minister joins the committee culture of the bureaucracy, as Parrikar has done, with recommendations of the committees either pending or extended or lying in cupboards without any action, then all is obviously at a standstill on the security of the nation.
Perhaps the worst action that Parrikar took was joining his party colleagues in grossly taking credit for the professionally competent actions of the army in its much publicised surgical strike and virtually politicising the Indian military, which takes pride in its apolitical ethos.
Parrikar is a well-meaning, intelligent and highly educated person, but he was perhaps too much of a gentleman to squarely face his well-entrenched colleagues in the party and the government. This resulted in his doing very little to assist the armed forces in many aspects, some of which have been highlighted above.
—The writer is a former vice chief of army staff.
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PS"[http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/defence-minister-leaves/377059.html ]
Opinion » Editorials
Mar 15, 2017.
A job not even half done
In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ordered way of doing things, Manohar Parrikar was ordained to accomplish several radical makeovers in the Defence Ministry. Plucked from the obscurity of the politically lightweight state of Goa, the IIT graduate was brought to Delhi to wipe off the sloth and sleaze that had supposedly accumulated in the Defence Ministry during AK Antony’s stewardship. There was the question of uplifting the soldier’s morale that had been dented because of the UPA Government’s pusillanimity; speeding up purchases held up because of Antony's indecisiveness; rearranging the higher defence management; and of course ensuring that all major weapon systems are manufactured in India. It seemed that all Parrikar had to do was to come up with approach papers and in Modi’s linear world of instant solutions, implementation could start straight away.
Now that Parrikar has returned to the more familiar world of Goa, were his two years in the Defence Ministry well spent? Parrikar did accomplish the larger political purpose of equating the armed forces with the BJP’s concept of nationalism. So the Army’s surgical strike was tom-tommed all over the country, especially in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, as the ruling party’s Brahmastra to violence emanating from unresolved political questions. Any grievance against public policy was shouted down by comparing the soldier’s perseverance and sense of loyalty against all odds with the citizen’s inability to take an inconvenience in his stride.
But in his Ministry, Parrikar will earn a C grade with the remarks, “showed sincerity but needed to apply himself to the job.” Indeed murmurs from the Defence Ministry all through his tenure were about Parrikar readily forsaking the perseverance required for the job for the joys of settling petty political squabbles in Goa.
Was it any wonder that all through his tenure, the Ministry fell short in purchasing equipment? The suicide rate is again in the worrying range and a radical rearranging of defence management awaits another minister. Modi might have won a resounding victory in UP, but a mid-term evaluation of the Defence Ministry would indicate it has been all sound and very little actual work.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/parrikar-only-added-to-list-of-status-quoists/377081.html
PARIKKAR DEFENCE MATRIC FAIL HO GYA, GRADED TO THIRD CLASS WITH GRACE MARKS
Mar 15, 2017,
Parrikar only added
to
list of status-quoists
At the behest of bureaucracy, Parrikar started interfering in the internal affairs of the armed forces, instead of leaving them to the chiefs. It was also during his helmsman-ship that the defence budget touched a nadir, at less than 1.6% of the GDP.
The reason was that he appreciated the nuances of security issues; was aware of the requirements of the military and what made it tick; and did not pander to the foibles and intrigues of the generalist bureaucracy.
Even in the past, there have been cases of movements to and from the Centre to the states, and vice versa. Sharad Pawar was appointed Defence Minister on June 26, 1991, but in March 1993 he was moved to Maharashtra as chief minister.
Ultimately, while the military continued to struggle to get their dues in financial terms, the bureaucrats, police and other civil administrative services walked away smugly with all kinds of enhancements, perks and the like. Even the so-called NFU is being denied, despite a judicial ruling on the issue!
Perhaps the worst action that Parrikar took was joining his party colleagues in grossly taking credit for the professionally competent actions of the army in its much publicised surgical strike and virtually politicising the Indian military, which takes pride in its apolitical ethos.
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
PS"[http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/defence-minister-leaves/377059.html ]
Opinion » Editorials
Mar 15, 2017.
Defence Minister leaves
A job not even half done
Was it any wonder that all through his tenure, the Ministry fell short in purchasing equipment? The suicide rate is again in the worrying range and a radical rearranging of defence management awaits another minister. Modi might have won a resounding victory in UP, but a mid-term evaluation of the Defence Ministry would indicate it has been all sound and very little actual work.
