Monthly Archives: August 2018

New Delhi: Former Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief PV Naik has urged the government to involve retired service chiefs in the selection of military heads. In a letter written to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Naik has urged that former chiefs be inducted into panels for selecting future military chiefs.

“Sir, I have a small suggestion regarding the selection of Chiefs. Nobody denies that merit-based selection, with due deference to seniority, is the best method. The question is who determines merit? Is it the RM under Def Secy’s advice? Is it the PMO? Is it Intel or the NSA?” Naik has said in his letter.

All the above have only peripheral knowledge of the officer concerned. Besides political leanings, we need to factor in professionalism too. So whose advice counts in the Appointments Committee? May I suggest a panel involving all the above plus an ex-Chief of the same Service,” he has further said in his letter, news agency ANI reported.

Naik’s letter comes ahead of a scheduled change of leadership in the IAF when incumbent Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa retires. Interestingly, the appointment of incumbent Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh has also been challenged in the court by Vice Admiral Bimal Verma even as the former has taken over the office of CNS.

“We should start small, say at Director level, and make it work before taking it further. This, sir, is the first step. Without this, the rest is cosmetic,” Naik said in his letter.

A case has been registered against an Indian Army Colonel and 40 other armymen for allegedly using arms to threaten people living in a village in Maharashtra. The incident occurred in Rajguru Nagar in Pune when Colonel Kedar Gaikwad allegedly threatened the villagers over ancestral property in the area.

It has been alleged in the complaint that the Colonel used his whole battalion for the purpose. The battalion has been accused of indulging in fistfight with the villager who had fought with the Colonel’s father.

Colonel Gaikwad’s father had bought 64 acres of land in a village near Pune, over which he indulged in a dispute with a villager named Sunil Bharne. According to Colonel Gaikwad’s father, Bharne had illegally occupied the land owned by him. However, Bharne claims that he had bought the land and has been using it for farming since long.

On June 14, Colonel Gaikwad’s father and Sunil Bharne indulged in scuffle. The Colonel, who is posted in the artillery unit in Hyderabad, was later informed about the incident. He then reached the village along with 40 members of his battalion. They beat up Bharne and also threatened people using arms.

A case has been registered and process has begun to seek permission from the Indian Army to initiate action against the Colonel and other members of the battalion.

Senior Congress leader and former minister Manish Tewari has returned to Parliament after defeating SAD stalwart Prem Singh Chandumajra. In an interview with The Tribune reporter  Aditi Tandon, the Lok Sabha MP from Anandpur Sahib spoke on a range of issues

You have termed your Lok Sabha win a personal vindication, why?

Because I have been able to bury the stigma that I was scared of fighting an election. In 2014, I was the Ludhiana MP and minister. Unfortunately after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were announced a lingering health issue manifested itself in a rather virulent manner and on the advice of my doctors I was not able to contest. For five years, my opponents ran a campaign against me saying I had run away from elections as I feared being defeated. For someone who has been a fighter all his life it was painful to be labeled like this. That’s why I was keen on contesting the state Assembly elections in 2017, but the party decided otherwise. So Anandpur Sahib contest was a personal crusade and my victory a personal vindication.

Your plans for the segment?

Anandpur Sahib has tremendous religious and cultural diversity. It is home to Takth Sri Kesgarh Sahib, houses the city of Chamkaur Sahib where the elder Sahibzadas attainted martyrdom; has holy place associated with Guru Ravidas; has memorials for Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his mother. There is tremendous potential to develop the segment as a hub for religious and nationalistic tourism. We will try and institutionalise an annual literary-cultural festival in the constituency.

CM Capt Amarinder Singh has come down heavily on Navjot Sidhu for hurting party prospects. Your take?  

Capt Amarinder is the only leader of Punjab. If at all there is a contemporary in terms of leadership that he may have, it is Parkash Singh Badal. It is thus unfortunate that young ministers who are a part of his government rather than learning from him are trying to unnecessarily snipe at him. Sidhu or anybody else would really benefit by learning the way Capt Amarinder functions. Getting into a quibble with him is a no-brainer because the reality is that no one in terms of gravitas and leadership quality measures up to him.

Would you credit Congress’ Punjab’s performance to Capt Amarinder?

This is the 26th month of Capt Amarinder Singh’s government in the state. In the 2004 LS polls, we had won only two seats — Jalandhar and Patiala. This time we have won eight and lost Bathinda narrowly. The credit should and must go to Capt Amarinder because it is his leadership which made all the difference.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is adamant on quitting his post. Can Capt Amarinder lead the Congress?

My personal belief is that Rahul Gandhi should continue as Congress president. In electoral politics, there are victories and defeats. While victory should not make you overly ecstatic, defeat should not put you down. Insofar as Capt Amarinder is concerned he has deliberately, not from today but stretching back the entire length of his political career, devoted himself to the service of the people of Punjab. He has always had his priorities clear. I think the discussion around who should succeed Rahul Gandhi is meaningless.

How do you read the 2019 verdict after Congress’ 2014 loss?

It is a defeat and there is no running away from it. But if you try and do an analysis you eventually come to wrong conclusions. So there has to be an honest assessment in terms of messaging as to where did we go wrong, what is the scope of improvement, how do we plan for 2024?

Why has Congress failed to convince people that it’s a viable alternative?

It has now been 38 years that I have been with the Congress. I have seen it going through highs and lows. I remember a time in 1987, when we won just five seats in Haryana. In 1991, we had majority there. The current electoral cycle is not a cause for disappointment although it is a cause of concern. The Congress has the resilience to bounce back but I agree there is need for tremendous amount of hard work.

Will we see you as leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha?

My ambitions have always been circumscribed by the diktats of the party. This is a decision squarely within the remit of the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party and the Congress president. Any expression of desire or interest by anyone is a complete non-sequitur and meaningless exercise.

The Indian Army has cautioned people not to believe an imposter who is seen in a video wearing Army combat uniform and spreading disinformation.

The Additional Director General PI of the Indian Army, through its twitter handle said, “Imposter wearing Indian Army combat uniform in video spreading disinformation”.

‘Be Cautious – Be Vigilant’, the Army said.

“Soldiers of #IndianArmy are committed to uphold the core values of our Constitution and the rich history of courage, valour and sacrifice,” the India Army added. The Army also shared the photo of the fake video saying “Please do not spread this fake video of IMPOSTER”.

Newly appointed Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has constituted a Committee headed by Comptroller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) to examine the equalization of pensions of defence personnel with effect from 01 Jul 2019 under One Rank, One Pension (OROP) scheme, giving one month to the Committee to forward its recommendations.

Above apparently is following a recent clarification sought by CGDA from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) “whether any logic exists to initiate the process of OROP revision (equalization) once the pension of past and current pensioners was initiated on January 1, 2016”. Issue to note is that though executed after the 7th Central Pay Commission, OROP for soldiers was implemented with effect from July 1, 2014, and a gazette notification said pension would be equalized after five years; which implied with effect from July 1, 2019. Equalization implies soldiers who retire in same rank and with same length of service will be on a par in terms of pension.

The last minute CGDA query when pensions are to be equalized with effect from July 1, 2019, and constituting another Committee by the Defence Minister (on behest of MoD) raises the questions: one, did MoD ask CGDA to begin the process of equalization of pensions; two, if yes, who is CGDA to question it, and; three, if not, who prompted the CGDA to seek such clarification now? Clearly, this is deliberate mischief between MoD’s Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare (DESW) and the CGDA taking advantage of a new defence minister who would be unaware of the background of OROP.

Though the government has been reiterating that OROP has been granted, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is perhaps unaware it was not the case, and instead a one-time raise in pension was given, as explained in these columns (OROP – is it really granted?: https://hillpost.in/2015/09/orop-is-it-really-granted/104218/), which also explained the politico-bureaucratic obduracy in giving military pensioners their due. Defence-cum-Finance Minister Arun Jaitley found it impossible to actualize OROP annually (as required) despite his educational qualifications and available technology, with banks calculating everything on daily basis including flexi deposits.

It is well known that while Manohar Parrikar, when Defence Minister wanted to award ‘full’ OROP, Jaitley made it a prestige issue to deny it, the talk of the town being he could never recover from losing his deposits when defeated in elections at Amritsar to an Army veteran during 2014. That notwithstanding, if government was convinced that OROP was fully implemented, where was the need to appoint the one-man Reddy Commission on OROP to look into the anomalies. L Narasimha Reddy was retired Chief Justice of Patna High Court, heading the one-man committee, submitted his report to the government on October 26, 2016. His recommendations obviously were not to the liking of the bureaucracy, due to which it was put in the freezer.

20 months after Reddy Commission submitted its report, the then Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated in July 2018, ‘We are examining the report of retired chief justice of Patna High Court, L Narasimha Reddy”. Parliament was also informed that another committee has been appointed to examine recommendations of the Reddy Commission report (sic). On January 3, 2019, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Centre on a public interest litigation alleging inordinate delay in removal of anomalies in the “initial implementation” of OROP, as ordered by the MoD in November 2015. Next in run up to the recent general elections, Sitharaman stated publicly on March 4, 2019, that the Centre would “shortly” review the scheme to review anomalies of OROP.

The new Committee appointed by the Defence Minister is akin to going around the mulberry tree with no full-stops in sight. Here a few additional issues are relevant, which perhaps are not known to public at large. The protests against non-implementation of OROP are attributed to officers through vested news, which it is not. Officers are only 1% of retirees; non-equalization of OROP hurts soldiers most. There is plenty discussion about little funds left for military modernization on account of pay, allowances and pensions but following needs to be considered in this context:

• The past five annual defence budgets have been ‘negative’ in actual terms and lowest since 1962.
• While announcing defence budgets, it is clarified that separate provision is made for pensions, which is sensible because 60,000 personnel retire annually from the Army alone. So why the hue and cry.
• Despite voids of a National Security Strategy and a Strategic Defence Review (SDR), the Army has been instructed to cut down 1,00,000-1,50,000 manpower. But there are no cuts in the 6.5 lakh civilian-defence employees who at an average cost five times more than their uniformed counterparts.
• Dispassionate analyses ‘overall defence expenditure’ in the country would indicate that almost 70% DRDO-OFB-DPSUs, with returns that are hardly commensurate. Enormous funds can be saved there.
• Compared to the cries to reduce the military strength without a SDR and without reducing CI commitments, the central armed police forces are expanding rapidly, with enormous funds at disposal of Ministry of Home Affairs.

NDA III is to announce its first budget on July 6. Logically, annual defence allocation of 2.5 to 3% of GDP for next five years is needed since without a strong military no country can even push its national interests at the bargaining table. The fact that India spent $8.6 billion on the recent general elections (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/08/asia/india-election-spending-intl/index.html), double than 2014 Indian elections and $2.1 billion more that 2016 US presidential elections, indicates there is no dearth of money in our country. A government that seeks votes from martyrdom of soldier but denies then their dues can only be described as pathetic. Defence Minster Rajnath Singh needs to put an end to the unending subterfuge on OROP, and take a decision once for all.

Abuse of privileges by senior officers in the form of misuse of vehicles, use of soldiers as domestic help and fudging electricity bills is rampant.

While many in the Indian armed forces are calling a price cap on cars sold at military canteens “ill treatment” and some others are questioning the perks they enjoy, they need to look at a recent incident in the UK where a naval officer ‘misused’ his official car and was ‘removed from command’. The two aren’t comparable, but they call into question the expectations people have of military men and women.

Error in judgement or ethics

Two weeks ago, Commodore Nick Cooke-Priest, the Captain of Royal Navy warship HMS Queen Elizabeth, was removed from command for an ‘error of judgement’ in ‘misusing’ his official car.

The military veterans, media and the public in the UK were divided on the subject. Some felt that the ‘misdemeanour’ hardly warranted the sacking of a highly regarded Captain who commanded a £3-billion aircraft carrier, which can carry up to 36 fighter jets with a maximum crew strength of 1600 and is the most modern ship in the Royal Navy fleet.

Some others felt that military ethics are absolute and there can be no compromise on that, irrespective of rank, appointment and professional calibre.

Also read: Indian armed forces upset as Modi govt imposes curbs on car sales at military canteens

My own tweet on the subject, highlighting the falling ethical standards in our armed forces, led to a lively debate on Twitter. It was a pleasant surprise that the Twitterati and the veterans were unanimous in their views on upholding highest ethical standards in armed forces irrespective of the compromised standards in other government institutions and the society.

Military leadership & best practices

In the recorded military history of five millennia, the fundamentals of military leadership – the value system, the leadership traits, the principles, and the code of conduct – have remained unchanged. Unchanged, because the military has dynamically selected the best practices from the society, used them to develop its leaders, and applied them absolutely through enforceable rules, regulations and military law to bridge the gap between military ideals and omnipresent human failings.

Ethics – the understanding of moral right or wrong – guides military leaders in taking the right decisions. The military is the state’s instrument of last resort and can use ‘force’ on its behalf. If it does not strictly adhere to the moral conduct, the consequences will be horrendous, particularly when military is employed for internal security.

Violation of military ethics

Our officer corps have a stellar reputation in peace and war. In battle, they have led from the front. However, a lot of character shortcomings have been reported particularly among senior officers, Colonels or equivalent and above.

Also read: In his hyper-nationalistic election speeches, Narendra Modi is writing India’s security doctrine

Over the years, there have been numerous reports on violation of military ethics by officers. We have had ‘Booze Brigadier’ and ‘Ketchup Colonel’ cases along with numerous instances of alleged fake encounters.

A number of senior officers have faced court-martial, notable among them was a director general of the Army Service Corps, a Lt Gen, who was awarded three years rigorous imprisonment (later reduced to dismissal by the Armed Forces Tribunal) for procuring inferior dal. ‘Tent scandal’, ‘egg scam’ and ‘golf cart scam’ are some of the ridiculous names for cases of petty corruption. Abuse of privileges by senior officers in the form of misuse of vehicles, use of soldiers as domestic help and fudging electricity bills is rampant.

The highest custodians of military morals, the service chiefs, apart from a host of other senior officers, are no exception. A General-rank officer has been found guilty of molesting a subordinate woman officer. Two Army chiefs and one Navy chief and several other generals, including Army commanders, were allegedly allotted flats in the now-notorious Adarsh Housing Society in violation of the rules. If that is not enough, service chiefs in connivance with the Ministry of Defence are known to have got an authorisation to keep personal staff post-retirement. With what face can a chief act as the moral custodian of his service when he has got a dubious perk ‘authorised’?

The cascading effect

It is a non-valid excuse that the declining standards of probity in public life have an effect on the military. The military is expected to avoid this pitfall through a structured leadership development programme, which is backed by rules, regulation and enforcement of the law.

The reasons for the current decline in ethical standards are a flawed leadership development programme and a compromised leadership failing to enforce the rules.

Also read: Don’t politicise Indian armed forces. Just look at what it did to our police

Mutual trust between the leader and those being led is the most important factor in a battle. This trust is built over a period of time during training. In a rules and regulations-bound organisation with strict enforcement laws, the subordinates are constantly watching their leaders. They are very keen to see whether the leader adheres to the strict rules and regulations as well as the privations that s/he enforces on them. This why the ‘role model’ who ‘leads by example’ never fails in the military. In an evolving society, probity of the leader is always measured. The military is no exception. In the military, ‘integrity’ also stands for an ‘integrated personality’ with no duplicity.

Duplicitous conduct of the officer corps, particularly with respect to ‘integrity’, has a cascading effect on the psyche of the subordinates, leading to lack of faith and trust – a most dangerous situation in a battle. This is why the ‘good’ Captain of HMS Queen Elizabeth had to be ‘removed from command’. It is high time that the Indian military puts its house in order with respect to falling standards in morals and ethics.

Lt Gen H S Panag PVSM, AVSM (R) served in the Indian Army for 40 years. He was GOC in C Northern Command and Central Command. Post retirement, he was Member of Armed Forces Tribunal. Views are personal.

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