The Old Siege Within

GEORGE Fernandes, the armed forces say, is the best defence minister they have had in a quarter of a century. Then why, the nation would like to know, have two stories broken out in October impugning the navy and air force chiefs? Is the last and the best institution remaining in the country—the armed forces—under attack from within? Sadly, it would appear so. But the reason for the nastiness in the media is that somebody is being hurt. The pain is being caused because, for a change, there is Clausewitzian friction in the ministry of defence. Friction, according to Clausewitz, is a good thing, for it indicates that work is being done, where nothing happened before. George has demanded results, and the armed forces see in this attitude new hope in cleaning up the mess in the ministry. The navy and air force chiefs have not suddenly sprouted horns. Vice-admirals have been superseded before; they have represented their grievances to the government and rarely has 'the government' interfered; unlike this time, when an unhappy vice-admiral's complaint which is 'personal and confidential' has found its way mysteriously into the press, from Delhi. S.K. Sareen certainly has his detractors, even in the air force where the couple's habit of holding up play on the golf course, for a royal right of way, embarrasses both serving and retired officers. But personal foibles should not end up in criticism of the Su-30, which is arguably the best aircraft available at the price anywhere in the world. Nor should any smells emanating from the deal be placed at Sareen's door, as the agreement was signed before his time.

The services have watched this kind of nautanki before when Sundarji's unblemished record was dragged into the Bofors controversy and a perfectly harmless naval vice chief's name appeared in derogatory terms in the press on the HDW deal. The rank and file of the services laughingly ignored all that as it was no secret who got the money in both deals, and more importantly who the 'facilitators' were in the ministry of defence in each case. Ferna-ndes finds the going rough, because he demands from the ministry a minimum quota of results, something its officials have not produced in years. This is not because they don't spend hours at their desks, they do, but like many systems in India created for dishonest purposes, internal contradictions prevent decision-making and the fixing of any accountability. V.P. Singh as defence minister tried to rationalise the ministry's working procedure in 1987, and asked for the number of projects or cases on which its officers were currently working. The results were astounding. One joint secretary's name appeared against 48 projects, on each of which his expertise would have just filled a thimble.

The sordid story starts in 1948 when someone in independent India thought up a scheme to downgrade the armed forces from the position they had earlier enjoyed. Defence secretary H.M. Patel suggested most innocently that 'office procedures' could now be amended to allow the MOD to issue all government approvals. Gen Cariappa, too much of a gentleman and too ignorant of the importance of what was being suggested, agreed, and along with the introduction of a separate filing system between the services and the bureaucrats and the bureaucrats and the minister, democracy was saved from the 'rude and licentious soldiery'.

Since then, running the armed forces has become a hurdle race, with obstacles erected not by the enemy, but by our own ministry. Staff officers adapted themselves to a variety of subterfuges to 'get their cases through'. They threatened, pleaded and in the end compromised. Gradually there built up in the armed forces headquarters an abiding animosity between the services and the bureaucrats, and more interestingly between the officers and their chiefs. The prestige of a chief in his own service was directly proportional to the manner in which he dealt with the ministry. This animosity has built up today into a considerable groundswell, no chief can afford to ignore it. With the army losing a man a day in Kashmir, as the ministry asks endless questions to requests for better equipment, the MOD has little choice but to reorganise, or to push the services over the edge.

THE standoff in the MOD is about very major issues. Does the armed forces being under civilian control mean that every itinerant undersecretary can create confusion in the services by asking for stupid clarifications on the file; or does civilian control mean that the armed forces are answerable to Parliament through the defence minister? Parliament itself has castigated the MOD in no uncertain terms. "There is no national security doctrine.... The National Security Council should be revived.... The MOD should place before Parliament a formal national Defence Policy Document.... The present procedure...assumes the form of a hurdle race.... The service headquarters should take more decisions at their own levels.... There exists now a gap in perception, specialisation and familiarity between services and the civilian apparatus.... The decision-making process in the MOD needs to be reformed to avoid cost over-runs.... Immediate attention be paid to imparting greater specialisation to the civilian officers" (Parliamentary Estimates Committee report, 1993).

Parliament and the armed forces are obviously in agreement that the MOD has poor procedure, low expertise, ineffective systems and lack of accountability. Fernandes has a hard choice, because his predecessors had neither his sincerity not his courage to support India's last and finest institution. The chiefs have at last found their voices and to help Fernandes cast his vote a mini-poll should help—the issue being, does the country need to be protected from the armed forces or the bureaucrats?

(Raja Menon, a former naval officer, writes on strategic affairs.)