The Indian Army has been in the eye
of controversy of late. Despite its changing social composition, better
opportunities in the corporate sector and disenchantment with politics, the
Indian Army officer continues to exhibit exemplary qualities of patriotism and
leadership.
Suman Ghosh is an Indian Army jawan
and the designated sahayak of Major A K Sharma of the 226 Field Regiment. A
sahayak — alternatively known as ‘batman’ in the Indian Army during the Raj —
has a demeaning role in the modern democratic context and may soon become a
relic of India’s colonial past if the government implements the recommendations
of a parliamentary committee on defence. The committee has sought a ban on
deploying jawans as sahayaks on the home front of army officers rather than on
the battlefront. The job is almost like a domestic servant, catering to the
personal needs of the officer and his family. On May 10, 2012, in the frontier
town of Nyoma in Ladakh, five officers beat up Ghosh in front of almost the
entire unit. Reprimanded by their commanding officer Col. P Kadam, they
attacked him too. This provoked the jawans to assault Major Sharma and his
friends. An inquiry is on.
Is the Officer no longer a
Gentleman? Has the Indian Army, created as a volunteer force during the days of
the Raj, and acquired the mythology of being a force led by officers whose code
was ‘death before dishonour’ changed dramatically since the sun set on its
previous masters 65 years ago? The army has been in the news for the wrong
reasons of late: General V K Singh alleged corruption was rampant among senior
army officers; the Sukna land scam claimed the scalp of a serving Lieutenant
General and the Adarsh scam at the expense of Kargil widows which involved
former chief of staff General Deepak Kapoor saw the arrest of Major Generals,
Brigadiers and other army officers.
Courage
as tradition
A Nyoma or an Adarsh does not
reflect the face of the Indian Army leadership. It has a meritorious record of
sacrifice. Nearly 550 soldiers and officers were killed in the Kargil War of
1999. In the Indo-Pak War of 1971 — the shortest war in recent history — 3,000
Indian soldiers fell and 12,000 were wounded, but some 93,000 Pakistani
soldiers were captured as POWs. During the first Indo-Pak War of 1948 the Indian soldiers fought valiantly.
In the Indo-China War of 1962, the Indian Army fought fiercely, inflicting and
receiving many casualties: dead bodies of Indian soldiers were found in the ice
in Aksai Chin — some years later — with weapons in hand where they had fallen.
The Chinese hailed the valour of the Indians; reports from Peking said Indian
officers and soldiers were unwilling to surrender even if it meant death.
The Battle of Rezang La is part of
martial legend. Rezang La pass was guarded by a company of 123 Indian troops.
Of the defenders, 109 were killed and nine of the survivors were severely
injured. They had fought fiercely to the end in the unforgivingly cold
Himalayan heights: a Defence Studies and Analysis paper estimates the number of
Chinese dead at around 500. Vir Chakra awardee Gen Ian Cardozo writes in Param
Vir Chakra, Our Heroes in Battle: “When Rezang La was later revisited dead
jawans were found in the trenches still holding on to their weapons... every
single man of this company was found dead in his trench with several bullet or
splinter wounds. The 2-inch mortar man died with a bomb still in his hand. The
medical orderly had a syringe and bandage in his hands when the Chinese bullet
hit him... Of the thousand mortar bombs with the defenders all but seven had
been fired and the rest were ready to be fired when the (mortar) section was
overrun.” The hero of Rezang La was the Company Commander, Major Shaitan Singh.
Seriously wounded by a Chinese sniper, he kept dashing from post to post,
encouraging his soldiers. The citation on his Param Vir Chakra reads: ‘When
Major Shaitan Singh fell disabled by wounds in his arms and abdomen, his men
tried to evacuate him but they came under heavy machine-gun fire. Major Shaitan
Singh then ordered his men to leave him to his fate in order to save their
lives. Major Shaitan Singh’s supreme courage, leadership and exemplary devotion
to duty inspired his company to fight almost to the last man.’ His body was
found some days after the battle behind a boulder, weapon in hand.
The
thick red line
The relationship between officers
and men is part of the mythos of the Indian soldier. Naik Digendra Kumar of 2
Rajputana Rifles — also known in his unit as The Cobra—was responsible for the
crucial capture of Tololing hill in the Dras sector during the Kargil war.
Pakistani troops commanded the hill that was at an altitude of 15,000 feet. At
base camp, The Cobra was sickened at the sight of bodies of dead comrades being
brought down after futile assaults. Morale was low and many jawans were
breaking down. The Cobra volunteered to Army Chief General V P Malik with a
plan to take Tololing. He knew it was so dangerous that he may not come back
from the mission alive. On the cold, snowy evening of June 10, 1999, the Cobra
hugged his comrades farewell. Most believed it could be their last
meeting. In the cover of night, Digendra led his men uphill, using a rope
to climb; when his hands froze, he held on to the rope with his teeth. Fourteen
hours later, Tololing was theirs. General Malik sent a message to Digendra that
said, “Son! Accept congratulations of V P Malik forty-eight hours in advance of
our success. Son! If we win the Kargil, Malik himself will bring breakfast for
you tomorrow morning.” And he did.
“The leadership quality of an army’s
officer can be judged by the operations on ground. Take the ratio of officers
and jawans who have been wounded or martyred during operations. The ratio of
officers is very high. It shows they were leading from the front. Ours is the
leadership even in the face of the bullet,” explains LtCol Gurnarinder Singh of
Army Supply Corps.
Thousands of Indian soldiers —
officers and men — have bloodied the mud of many battlefields across the world.
In World War I, around 1.3 million Indian soldiers fought for the Empire and
nearly 75,000 men were killed. In World War II, nearly 87,000 Indian troops
died. For every major who assaults his sahayak, there are scores of war heroes:
Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav of 18 Grenadiers; Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey,
1/11 Gorkha Rifles; Captain Vikram Batra, 13 JAK Rifles; Captain Anuj Nayyar,17
JAT Regiment; Major Saravanan, 1 Bihar; Rifleman Sanjay Kumar, 13 JAK Rifles
and Major Rajesh Singh Adhikari, 18 Grenadiers were some warriors who were
awarded high honours after Kargill. For every jawan and officer who clashed in
Nyoma last week, there are heroes like Naik Digendra Kumar and General Malik.
The Army, in its wisdom, describes Nyoma an “isolated” incident of
“indiscipline”.
Change
in command
However, it cannot be ignored that
change has come to the Indian Army officer class, just as it has across
professions; all of it inevitable, but some not so good. Some old soldiers
point to the changing class structure of the army. Others comment on the change
in inherited British standards of the Indian Army officer.
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(Brig AS Sidhu)
Brigadier A S Sidhu, one of the few
test pilots of the Indian Army and presently posted as Brigadier Aviation of
South Western Army Command (SWAC) says. “The value system of society has
changed, so the kind of persons joining the armed forces has also changed. Now,
people from all walks of life and a large number of children of other ranks are
joining the forces. Presently, monetary condition and financial security is
primary consideration.” He says his son’s value systems are very different from
his. “He is now doing hotel management,” he says. The brigadier joined the Army
in 1981. “When I joined, 90 per cent of army men came from affluent families,
so money was not the criteria. I was getting money from home even after I got
commissioned,” he adds. Brigadier Sidhu contests any view that the Army’s new
officers are short of leadership qualities. “One is born with leadership
qualities. They can be honed if you have it. But, it cannot be grown. You can
make managers but not a leader. The fundamentals of the Army are still strong.”
New India’s aspiration standards are
slowly eclipsing the martial family traditions of the officer class. Naib
Subedar Krishan Lal of 26 Rajput is looking forward to the passing-out parade
of his son at the National Defence Academy. His son was always a rank holder in
school, but he considered the army as a career over plum jobs outside. “I am
excited about his passing out parade. I have been a sipahi for my whole life. I
have saluted officers. Now I will get a chance to salute my son,” says Lal with
pride. “Chaati chaudi ho gayi (My heart swells with pride),” he says in rustic
Hindi. His younger son is also aspiring to follow his brother’s bootsteps.) The
Lals belong to the Scheduled Castes, and he feels the Army’s impartial
selection process proved to be a touchstone of his son’s merit. The profile of
those who want to become officers has changed. World War II was a milestone in
the history of the Indian Army; writes General S K Sinha, “Prior to the war,
the strength of the Army was 1.37 lakh and recruitment was confined to the
martial classes. A large number of soldiers came from traditional military
families. During the war, floodgates had been opened for recruitment. The Army
had been expanded from 1.37 lakh to 2.2 million.”
Officer's
choice
The world war made the British
realise the importance of the Indian soldier, especially the officer. The
Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College was established at Dehradun in
March 1912 with the purpose of educating young boys from aristocratic families
so they could enter Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Sixty-nine officers were
commissioned between 1918 and 1932, the numbers growing incrementally but
steadily after the Indian Military Academy was created in 1932. Today there are
around 35,000 officers in the Indian Army, commanding more than one lakh men.
And they are proud of it. Like Colonel Neeraj Shukla, a second-generation
officer whose father Col A S Shukla was from the Signals Corps.
For the Colonel, the Army is not a
career but a way of life. He has been awarded the Sena medal twice for
exemplary valour fighting terrorists. He has been the Aide-de-Camp to two
presidents of India. Shukla was studying medicine in Delhi, when he got the
itch to don fatigues.
(Col Neeraj Shukla)
“I didn’t join for money, I wanted
to serve the motherland,” he says with the conviction of a battle-hardened
military officer. “If I am born again I would want to be nothing but an Army
officer.” The Colonel feels no civilian job with infinite money can ever
compensate for his status as an officer. He is a war hero who has commanded men
in the freezing altitude of Siachen as well on amphibious task forces at sea.
Once, he was shot twice in the leg, but the Colonel continued to fight
terrorists on the Pakistan border in an eight-hour long battle and killed seven
of them.
Yet, almost three hundred officers
opt for premature retirement every year, heading out to greener corporate
pastures. Col. Shukla explains, “Ours is a very steep pyramid structure. After
twenty years of service, only 20 per cent of my course-mates became colonels.
What about the rest? What will keep them motivated?” Yet, he believes in the Army.
Before joining, Shukla was a Nanoscience and Technology Consortium (NSTC)
scholarship holder and the secretary of National Student Union of India (NSUI)
while in college. He attributes attrition rate to the manner in which merit is
considered in the armed forces. “In the civil services, merit only matters at
the time of selection. In the armed forces, merit is the basis for promotion at
each stage. Many officers are left behind by a decimal. So what do they do? For
those who are left out, the temptations are aplenty,” he says.
Is this reason for yielding to these
temptations responsible for the beating the army’s image has taken? “Society
has certainly turned materialistic. Those who want cushy lives will not come to
the Army. Earlier, the ceremonial part played an important role, which
attracted the people from royalty and upper-class gentry. Today’s army is more
professional,” says Lt Col Gurnarinder Singh.
Lt Col Singh’s family has a
long-standing army background. His father, Brigadier (Retired) Gurmel Singh
served in the Army Supply Corps (ASC). The lieutenant colonel and his brother
who is an infantry officer are only continuing in their father’s tradition.
The
money gap
Tradition alone may not be enough to
keep officers from deserting the olive green pastures for greener ones. After
all, a general with almost four decades of service to the nation makes about as
much as the average IIM graduate. A fresh Army officer starts with a monthly
salary of around Rs. 42,000. A management trainee starts out at Rs 1. 2 lakh in
any of the top IT companies. A Colonel after twenty years of service is paid
around Rs. 85,000. A mid-level executive in a multinational firm after 15 years
in the job makes anywhere between Rs 2-5 lakh a month. The chief of the Indian
Army takes home Rs.1,53,000 before tax. The CEO of a top multinational earns
around Rs 25 lakh a month as basic pay, plus sops, bonuses and lavish perks.
However, Major Vishal Chauhan of 61 Cavalry, a second generation officer and
polo player says people still want to join the Army, but are not qualified
enough. He feels corporates mimic the army in many things. “All the MNCs are
taking concepts from the Army’s experience like sports activities for
employees, the appraisal system and so on.”
The Army looks after its own with
subsidised housing, food and travel, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for
today’s young go-getters. Col Shukla says, “We need to sell the glamour of the
army, and now is the right time. Today as an officer I am entitled to two
months of paid leave. Where in the corporate world can you get that kind of a
perk? The Army takes care of my medical requirements and that of my family’s,
even after my retirement. We have the advantage of travelling and the
membership of the best of the clubs for a meagre amount. In a cantonment, even
the temperature is five degrees less. If
you add up all this, my gross emoluments will be around Rs. 4.5 lakh a month.”
The Colonel is off to the US for a command course.
Major R Dhiman has similar
sentiments. He joined the Indian Army’s Medical Corps after completing his MBBS
instead of taking up private practice. His father was an airman and his mother
was in love with uniform. “Outside you can make money, but you will not have
time to enjoy life. Here I am able to do professionally good and also take out
time for my family,” says the Major.
The
parity problem
The Indian Army is currently facing
a shortage of around 10,000 officers. Earlier, each fighting unit had close to
25-26 officers, while today it has to do with 8-10 officers. Brigadier Sidhu
says: “Army life in the old days meant fun and frolic in peacetime. But now you
are on the job all 365 days a year. The education level of both troops and
officers is higher. Earlier we were just passing orders without caring about
the men. Now they are thinking soldiers. We have to convince them.” The daring
aviator has flown Army helicopters through the perilous passes and heights of
Ladakh.
The lack of parity with the civil
services is a big issue with Army officers. Many serving officers on conditions
of anonymity say: “In the Order of Precedence of the country, the ranking of
service chiefs have come down. This lowering of stature in the protocol list is
also the broad reflection of the declining importance of armed forces in the
national scheme of things.” The Order of Precedence of India is the protocol
list (hierarchy of positions) in which the functionaries and officials are
listed according to their rank and office in the government. In 1979 the
service chiefs were at position 12 ahead of Members of Parliament. But today
they sit at 23rd position in the group of 26 categories. So much so the rank of
Field Marshal (a five star general; the Army Chief is four star) does not even
find a place in the precedence. In 2008, the Defence Minister, service chiefs
and MPs did even not attend the funeral of the legendary Field Marshal SHFJ
Manekshaw, who scripted the 1971 victory for India.
“If you are talking about the
declining standards in the force then you have to understand that all of us are
coming from the same society. Any change in society will be impacting us as
well,” says Major Dhiman.
A
NEW BREED TO LEAD
Change in the army is evident in the
example of eighty-year-old Krishna Devi from the village of Nizampur Majra of
Sonepat district in Haryana. Her grandson Gentleman Cadet Nishant Sharma is
studying to become an officer in the Indian Military Academy (IMA). It’s a
dream come true for Krishna Devi. Her brother was a jawan who was killed in the
1971 war, whose son is an airman in the Indian Air Force. “Nishant is the first
one in our family to become an officer. It is the culmination of aspirations of
many generations,” says Devi. The young officer-to-be epitomises the one great
driver of change across the Army’s officer class; an expanding middle class
riding the rising demands of a growing army. The British believed the Empire’s
success was thanks to the generation of public school educated Englishmen who
went to Oxford and Cambridge in the late eighteen hundreds, which became a
class that was born to lead. As times change and democracy and economics blur
class barriers while expanding career choices, the army officer’s job looks no
longer glamorous to most middle class students who prefer Wharton to Dehra Dun.
But what remain eternal are the patriotism and a willingness to die for the
country.
“Patriotism is surviving because of
the Army. The officers of new generation are no less patriotic,” says Brigadier
Hamir Singh, Vir Chakra in 1971 War. “Compare the casualty rates of officers in
the Indian Army with that of any paramilitary forces of the country and you
will get the answer. You have to persuade your man to the highest sacrifice and
for that you have to lead from the front.” The Brigadier should know. He was
captured by the Pakistani forces and was held as a POW for a year before
returning to fight again.
(Four generations into Army. Brig Hamir Singh second from Left)
The Indian Army wages wars on many
fronts. Kashmir is one at home. In July last year, while on patrol in Dessa,
Major Kamlesh Pathak fell to terrorist bullets. He had been wounded in an
earlier encounter, but had insisted on going back to join his men. In the last
letter to his family who lived in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, the young Major wrote
about his injuries, “There’s still some pain, but the injury is healing fast.”
The Nyoma incident has caused much
injury to the image of the Indian officer and his jawan, who are united by ties
of blood for centuries. The wound will heal. As the relationship undergoes a
change, socially, economically and legislatively, one of the world’s finest
fighting machines will understand that for warriors, there can be no gain
without pain. There never has been.
The
Chief’s Letter
In 1986, when General K Sundarji
took over as Army Chief, one of the first things he did was to send a note to
all his officers. The letter created quite a stir in the Indian Army at the
time, candidly identifying prevalent ills and offering solutions. Excerpts:
■ Field Marshal Cariappa used
to say, “Good officers - good Army; bad officers - bad Army”. This is as true
today as it was then. We should, therefore look at ourselves first and be not
only frank but hypercritical. As a whole, the Corps of Officers has lost much
of its self esteem, pride and élan; it is becoming increasingly careerist,
opportunist and sycophantic; standards of integrity have fallen and honour and
patriotism are becoming unfashionable. Paradoxically, all this is happening,
while in the narrow sense, professional competence has been going up at all levels
since 1947. Broad-based though our intake has become, our young officers have
proved in every action which they have fought, that they are brave and lead
from the front—our officer casualty ratio in every action testifies to this.
Where then, are we going wrong?
■ First, let us look at ourselves —
the senior officers; most of us are senior to some of the others and so this
includes almost all of us. We have obviously NOT set the right example. Many of
us have not professionally kept ourselves up-to-date, doctrinally or
technologically; we have felt that we have ‘got it made’, and rested on our
oars; we do not read enough; we do not think enough, and some of course, have
been promoted well beyond their capability! In the practise of our profession,
we have not insisted on standards being maintained and turn our eyes away from
irregularities (living in a glass house?); we have not been tolerant of dissent
during discussion and encourage sycophancy (a result of our having ‘switched
off’ professionally?) we have not been accepting any mistakes (due to hankering
after personal advancement?), thus encouraging our juniors to either do nothing
worthwhile or to oversupervise their juniors, who in turn are not allowed to
develop professionally or mature as men. This leads to frustration. Finally,
some have perhaps unthinkingly developed a yen for 5-star culture and
ostentation which flows from new-rich values in our society, where money is the
prime indicator of success and social position. This adoption of mercenary values
in an organisation like the Army which depends for its élan on values like
honour, duty and country above self, is disastrous for its élan and for the
self-esteem of the individual in it. And once we start thinking of ourselves as
third class citizens, it is not long before our civilian brethren take us at
our own valuation, and some of them perhaps not without a touch of glee!
■ All of us talk about ‘Officer-Like
Qualities’ and about being officers and gentlemen. I am not sure whether to
many of us these terms means the same thing. Being a gentlemen does not mean
Westernisation and becoming a poor imitation of a ‘White Sahib’; it does not
mean a tie and a jacket or the ability to handle a knife and fork just so! It
refers to the ‘Sharafat’ that is ingrained in the best of Indian culture; of
honour and integrity; of putting the interests of the county, the Army, the
unit and one’s subordinates before one’s own; of doggedness in defeat; of
magnanimity in victory; of sympathy for the underdog; of a certain standard of
behaviour and personal conduct in all circumstances; of behaving correctly
towards one’s seniors, juniors and equals. I am very concerned about the
increasing sycophancy towards seniors which unless checked will corrode the
entire system. Much of this, I realise, is due to the pernicious system of
recompense and financial advancement being totally linked to higher ranks.
These are of necessity limited due to functional compulsions, and which
notwithstanding cadre reviews, are microscopic compared to prospects of our
peers in other Government services.
■ There is
a lot that we can do to improve our quality of life. The standards of officers’
messes in all areas have deteriorated badly. Dust, dirt and grime, sloppily
turned out mess staff, chipped and cracked crockery, unpolished furniture and
silver etc, are more and more in evidence. A pseudo-plush decor is attempted,
with expensive and garish curtains and upholstery, wall to wall carpeting and
so on; these cannot compensate for lack of care, attention to detail and
maintenance of standards; nor can aerosol room fresheners substitute for fresh
air and cleanliness. Messes are generally run down and seedy on a daily basis
and though special efforts are made to spruce them up for special occasions (generally
following the aerosol route) the lack of standards still comes through. This
must be put right by the painstaking method of insisting on standards. We must
keep the messes traditional without opting for a 5-star decor. The standard of
food is generally poor and lacking in variety, not because the ingredients are
not available but because of lack of attention to organisation and poor
training of cooks. With free rations, there is no reason as to why we cannot
spend a little on training our cooks and modernising our kitchens. While on the
quality of life, I must mention that by custom and usage of service, some
privileges do go with added responsibility and senior rank, and I am sure that
none would grudge these if used sensibly. However, in some cases senior
officers tend to get delusions of grandeur and overdo their privileges on a
Moghul style. This is bad and must stop. Otherwise privileges themselves might
be withdrawn.
