On the death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh — June 27 — it’s time to look afresh and recall some of the unprecedented achievements of a mighty Indian Maharaja, checkmating the mightier Englishmen, steam-rolling their Indian opponents with ease, one after another.

Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Commentator and Author

When Rabindranath Tagore wrote the immortal stanza on Sikhs: “Pancha nadir tire, beni pakaiya shire; dekhite dekhite gurur mantre jagiya uthichhe Sikh; nirmomo nirbhik” (on the banks of the five rivers, tying their hair and braids, the Sikhs responded to the clarion call of their Gurus to wake up from torpor to transform themselves as valiant fighters for their honour), one is not sure whether the poet had Maharaja Ranjit Singh in mind or not.

Nevertheless, the well-known fact is that Tagore wrote at least six poems on Sikh heroism and martyrdom owing to the indelible impression it left on his psyche. Thus, he wrote two poems in 1888, three in 1898, and one in 1935. Of them, three were on Guru Gobind Singh, one each on Banda Bahadur and Bhai Taru Singh, and one on the boy, Nehal Singh.

Be that as it may, if we re-focus from the spiritual to the statecraft of the Sikhs led by Ranjit Singh, what re-surfaces today is the mind-boggling action and thought process of the first geo-strategic thinker-cum-ruler of modern Indian history who knew how to call a spade a spade with the rapacious and roving British, notwithstanding his multi-front disadvantages. 

On the death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who passed away on June 27, 1839, at Lahore, the capital of his empire, it’s time to look afresh and recall some of the unprecedented achievements of a mighty Indian Maharaja, checkmating the mightier Englishmen, steam-rolling their Indian opponents with ease, one after another. In a matter of days. Battle after battle. State after state. The London juggernaut across South Asian terrain appeared endless, and unstoppable.

When Ranjit was born (originally named Buddh Singh) on November 13, 1780, and growing, it was an era of perennial turbulence and anarchy in India. The Marathas (aspiring to be the Mughals’ successor on the Delhi throne) had already been brutally battered by Afghan chief Ahmad Shah Abdali (aka Durrani) in the third battle of Panipat (January 1761). Soon thereafter, the English (under Warren Hastings), too, fought the Marathas and ended with the treaty of Salbai (May 1782), thereby giving another rude jolt to the Indian dream of establishing ‘Hindu Pada Padashahi’ (the Great Hindu Kingdom). 

Thus, when (minor) Ranjit, as the chief of Sukarchakia Sikh Misl, since April 1792, ascended the throne in April 1801 (at 20-plus), who would foresee the man reigning a long 38 years, till 1839? Perhaps, the ruler Ranjit himself also could not have had seen the future valour, achievement and foresight of his own self!

No wonder, Ranjit’s sixth sense-cum-vision told him to contain the British in the south through sweet words of diplomacy and curb the congenitally habitual invaders of India (since time immemorial) with the sword-wielding cavalry combatants to the north and north-west. Thus was concluded one of the rare, landmark treaties: the Treaty of Amritsar on April 25, 1809, between the British Government and the State of Lahore.

As many as 210 years have gone post the Amritsar Treaty, yet every Indian would be proud to peruse its semantics: “Both parties being anxious to maintain the relations of perfect amity and concord” were the opening words. The British want “perfect amity and concord” with an Indian ruler! How often has it happened during 19th-century Indian history? The treaty was concluded “by Rajah Ranjeet Singh on his own part, and by the agency of Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, on the part of the British Government.” Ranjit’s best bet came as a sort of guarantee by the British: “The British Government will have no concern with the territories and subjects of the Rajah” (Ranjeet Singh) “to the northward of the Sutlej”.

The strategic vision of Ranjit assured avoidance of ‘war on two fronts’. The British, too, having thus far arrived from their tiny island, were more than aware of their vulnerability owing to the real possibility of a Maratha revival in the heartland and the prospect of growing resentment in the periphery turning into a multi-front revolt across the Indian terrain. Both the British and the Punjab king secured their respective fronts.

Assured of stability and security, Ranjit had the north, north-west, and west to move his military; which he did. Successfully. With ‘one at a time’ policy. With a professional band of fortune-seeking, able commanders transcending borders and barriers of caste, language and religion, thereby putting Ranjit Singh way ahead of his times, compatriots, foes and friends alike. His sentence ‘Ek din sab lal ho jayega’ (One day everything will turn red) after seeing several red-colour territories on the map of South Asia (red denoting the British-conquered or -occupied Indian kingdoms and principalities) was prophetic. Ranjit Singh certainly was no prophet. He was an able ruler. A king. Far from pretentious. He had his plus points. He also had fault lines and share of failure.

He was a brilliant commander and himself a warrior par excellence without doubt. However, it was the misfortune of Punjab, and hence the history of India, that so great a visionary and geostrategic ruler like him would leave behind an empire destined to be doomed so fast and furious.

It’s of course no fault of Ranjit Singh that his was an essentially land power owing to Punjab (for that matter all territories which he conquered), Kashmir, Afghanistan and the fringe areas of Central Asia being landlocked. Hence, when the ‘great game’ began for the possession of land as buffer by the British and access to the Indian Ocean warm water port by Moscow (through the territories of South Asia) to break out of its land-fixative strategy, the importance of Ranjit Singh as the best buffer emerged for London and Moscow. His stability and ability were undoubtedly far superior, and preferable, to the eternal turbulence of Afghanistan which the British realised soon after his demise.

The British made the fatal mistake to fight the Afghans directly, in March 1839; but came back battered and shattered in 1842. There was no Ranjit Singh to give the British shelter, safety and security from/of/for the north-west frontier, to expand across other zones. The strong man of Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Central Asia was gone. And as it so often happens, an ‘over-strong’ predecessor is invariably succeeded by spineless, squabbling successors. Ashoka, Aurangzeb and Hitler: all were strong. Their states just capitulated after them. One is reminded of the old saying about the strong father’s weak son: “His sceptre was the bow of Ulysses which could not be drawn by a weaker hand.”

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 8

Of the 33 cadets from Punjab, who were commissioned as officers at the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun, today, as many as 15 are alumni of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institute (AFPI), Mohali.

A total of 382 officers of the 144th Course, along with 77 foreign cadets, passed out from the IMA today. Punjab stood at the fourth place in terms of the number of officers in the batch, a marked improvement over previous years.

The highest number of officers are from Uttar Pradesh (72), followed by Bihar (46) and Haryana (40). The passing out parade was reviewed by Lt Gen C Mathson, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South Western Command.

The cadets from the AFPI are from the institute’s third batch. They had undergone two-year training at the institute along with completing their Class XII from 2013 to 2015, followed by three years at the NDA and a final year at the IMA. The senior most among them was Battalion Under Officer Harshdeep Singh Sohi, who has been commissioned into the Mechanised Infantry.

Amongst the rest, two have joined the Armoured Corps, four each have opted for the Infantry and the Artillery while two each have chosen the Signals and the Army Ordnance Corps.

“With this, the total number of commissioned officers from the first three AFPI batches comes to 50. Another five cadets are under training at the Air Force Academy and are expected to be commissioned into the Indian Air Force on June 15,” said Maj Gen BS Grewal, Director General, AFPI.

In the batch that had passed out in June last year, over half the cadets from Punjab were AFPI alumni. General Grewal said so far, six AFPI courses had contributed 119 cadets to various service academies.

The AFPI was set up by the Punjab Government in 2011 for training boys for joining the armed forces as commissioned officers through the NDA or other service academies. Earlier, the entire state was sending just six to eight boys to the NDA for each course.

Itanagar/New Delhi, June 5

A massive day-night search for a transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force, which went missing two days ago, continued on Wednesday in remote mountainous Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh’s West Siang district.

The Russian-origin AN-32 aircraft with 13 people on board lost contact on Monday afternoon after taking off from Jorhat in Assam for Menchuka advanced landing ground near the border with China.

IAF sources on Wednesday said additional assets, including two Sukhoi-30 aircraft, were deployed on the third day to locate the missing plane apart from the fleet of C-130J and AN-32 planes and two Mi-17 and two ALH helicopters.

The ground forces included troops from the Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and state police.

The two Sukhoi-30 and two C-130J aircraft will carry out night missions, they said.

The IAF has been regularly updating the families of all air-warriors on board the aircraft about the rescue operation.

Military sources said rescuers have not received any signal from the emergency locator beacon in the missing plane, adding there is a possibility that the device may not have been functional.

They said the plane that went missing is yet to be upgraded with latest avionics and radars, though some of the AN-32 were strengthened with advanced systems.

The Indian Navy’s P-8I aircraft was deployed on Tuesday as it has electro-optical and infra-red sensors which could be helpful in the search operation.

IAF officials said ISRO’s Cartosat and RISAT satellites are taking images of the area around Menchuka to help the rescuers find the plane.

They said the area has thick vegetation and difficult terrain which are making the rescue operation challenging.

The IAF on Monday said the aircraft took off from Jorhat at 12.27 pm for the Menchuka advance landing ground, and its last contact with the ground control was at 1 pm.

A total of eight aircrew and five passengers were on board the aircraft.

The AN-32 is a Russian origin aircraft and the IAF currently operates a sizeable number of it. It is a twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft.

An AN-32 aircraft had crashed near a village in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh in June 2009 in which 13 defence personnel were killed.

The aircraft had crashed over the Rinchi Hill above Heyo village, about 30 km from Mechuka advance landing ground.

In July 2016, an AN-32 aircraft went missing while taking off from Chennai for Port Blair with 29 people on board.

The aircraft could not be traced following weeks of massive search operations covering 2,17,800 square nautical miles by multiple aircraft.

Months later, an IAF court of inquiry concluded that it was unlikely that the missing personnel on board the aircraft would have survived the accident. — PTI

Col Manmohan SIngh father of Lt Gen Ranbir Singh contradicts surgical strikes due to name changed for Raids conducted earlier .Her himself had conducted Raids in J& K.

Photo for representation only.

Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 12

Almost three years after 19 people lost their lives in a massive fire that had broken out at the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD), Pulgaon, it has now emerged that the Army had made multiple requests to the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) for removing defective anti-tank mines from the depot but no action was taken.

A petition filed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court by the widow of Lt Col RS Pawar, herself an Army officer hailing from Rohtak, has averred that the Army had in strong terms put on record that the matter was being “delayed deliberately” and “dragged unendingly”, thereby posing a serious threat to safety and security of personnel and endangering the establishment.

No effective action whatsoever was taken by the OFB, ultimately leading to the tragic blast in depot, one of the largest in Asia, on May 31, 2016, because of defective mines.

Two officers, including Lt Col Pawar, who was posthumously decorated for gallantry, and 17 others were killed and a huge stockpile of ammunition was destroyed.

Taking cognisance of the petition filed by Maj Reenu Ohlan, the high court has issued notices to the Department of Defence Production (DDP) and the OFB.

Besides seeking compensation “as the court may deem fit” from these two establishments, she has also sought action on the directions passed by the defence minister for fixing accountability and culpability in the incident and also for ensuring time-bound removal of all defective ammunition to prevent any such catastrophe in the future.

It was the mandate of technical experts from the OFB and the Quality Assurance Directorate to remove the mines categorised as defective.

The Army, which controls the CAD, is not authorised to handle such ammunition. In fact, there was another blast at CAD, Pulgaon in 2018, in which six persons were killed.

The petition states that thereafter the statutory Court of Inquiry established the lapses at various stages at the end of the OFB and directions were issued by the then defence minister in July 2016 to fix responsibility and criminal culpability and also to replace and dispose all defective ammunition.

Despite orders from the highest political executive, that the aforesaid action be taken within one month, no effective steps have been taken till date, the petition claims.

Pointing out that though the Army and the Department of Defence (DoD) in the MoD are supporting her, she has averred that there has been total apathy, negligence and indifference on part of the DDP and OFB.

Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, April 1

Four local Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants were killed and four security forces personnel, including three Army men, were injured in a gunfight between security forces and militants at Lassipora in Pulwama district on Monday morning.

The injured personnel are all out of danger and are undergoing treatment at the Army’s base hospital in Srinagar.

The slain militants have been identified as Zaffar Ahmad Paul of Dangerpora in Shopian, Aqib and Kumar of Imam Sahib in Shopian, Muhammad Shafi Bhat of Sedow in Shopian and Towseef Aziz Yattoo of Lassipora in Pulwama.

Yattoo was a category ‘A’ militant and was active since 2016. The other three had joined militant ranks in late 2018 or earlier this year. Before joining the Lashkar, Kumar was part of the Al-Qaida offshoot Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind.

A senior police officer said the operation was launched about 3 am following inputs about a militant hideout in the area.

“While the area was being cordoned off, the militants, who were hiding, opened indiscriminate fire, triggering a gunfight. The fire was duly retaliated,” the police officer said.

The officer said three Army men and a policeman were injured in the initial burst of fire by the militants. “They were evacuated to a hospital and are stable,” he said.

The gunfight continued for at least three hours before the militants were eliminated. The police have called the operation a clean one. They said there was no collateral damage. After identification and medico-legal formalities, the bodies of the militants were handed over to the families later in the day.

Despite curbs on civilian movement and an internet shutdown in both Pulwama and Shopian districts, thousands of people reached the villages of the militants to offer funeral prayers. A spontaneous shutdown was observed in the two districts.

Clean operation, says police

• The gunfight at Lassipora in Pulwama district on Monday morning continued for at least three hours before the four militants were eliminated
• The police have called the operation a clean one. They said there was no collateral damage

Most of Modi government’s arguments to deny non-functional upgrade to the armed forces won’t stand a layman’s scrutiny let alone legal scrutiny.

The irony is hard to miss. While India celebrates the performance of the armed forces in the recent, short-lived conflict with Pakistan in Balakot and the political class exploits them for electoral gains, the military personnel continue to fight a battle with the government in the Supreme Court.

The case pertains to not granting non-functional upgradation (NFU) to the officers of the armed forces that members of some other central services enjoy. The government has been delaying and dithering on financially compensating India’s armed forces that lack adequate promotional avenues.

What is NFU? How does it work?

Civil services are classified into All India Services – Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFS) – and Central Civil Services (CCS) – Group A and Group B. Based on cadre review, the CCS Group A have been further sub-divided into Organised (constituted by the Cadre Controlling Authority) and Non-Organised.

Keeping in view the stagnation in promotion of CCS Group A officers, the Sixth Central Pay Commission recommended NFU, linking their pay scales with those of their batch officers in the IAS. So, two years after the IAS officers are promoted, their batchmates in these services are automatically upgraded to the same level on a non-functional basis, irrespective of whether they are actually promoted or not. The usual system of promotion, meanwhile, continues. This upgrading is applicable for all ranks of officers up to the rank of Additional Secretary.

Non-grant of NFU to certain services

The government had initially granted NFU to only CCS Group A (Organised) even though the pay commission made no such distinction. In 2008 it was extended to the All India Services — IPS and IFS. The IAS as such is not entitled to NFU but its promotions are used as a benchmark as these are much faster than the other services.

The officers of the armed forces face maximum stagnation due to the conical pyramidical structure. An IAS officer gets promoted to the rank of Joint Secretary, equivalent to a Major General, after 18 to 20 years in service. An army officer becomes due for promotion to the rank of Major General with 32 to 33 years in service. Most army officers retire in the rank of Colonel at age of 54 years, while all IAS officers retire as Additional Secretary and above, which is equivalent to Lt Gen and above.

Also read: Good intentions, bad HR practice: Inducting civil service aspirants into the armed forces

The government’s stand in not extending the NFU to the armed forces and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) was that these two forces do not meet the criteria of being ‘Organised’ as per the policy laid down.

A bitter battle has ensued over the last decade between the CAPF and the Ministry of Home Affairs, and between the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence. The CAPF’s case went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the judgment  of the Delhi High Court on 5 February 2019, which granted them NFU.

Case of the armed forces

The armed forces, on the other hand, found hurdle in a government unwilling to extend the NFU to them. Years after first taking up the matter in 2008, the armed forces strongly presented its case before the Seventh Central Pay Commission. While its chairman supportedtheir inclusion in the NFU system, the other two members found the NFU concept flawed. They said it was unmeritorious and must be done away with for all services. The government took advantage of this ambiguity and summarily rejected the case, causing a lot of resentment among both the serving and the retired officers.

After dilly-dallying by the government at subsequent hearings, the case was finally heard on 12 March 2019. The judgement stands reserved.

Government’s arguments – and counter-arguments

Most of the arguments presented by the government would not withstand a layman’s scrutiny let alone legal scrutiny. For instance:

Policy making is government’s exclusive domain.Yes, it is indeed, but all our pay commissions have correlated the pay and allowances of all services, including the armed forces, and tried to maintain parity. The government should be responsible enough to ensure that its policies are on an equal basis and not selective and biased against the armed forces.

Constitutional right to equality enshrined in Article 14 and 16 is not applicable to armed forces.This is untenable. While Article 33 of theConstitution empowers Parliament to restrict or abrogate somefundamental rights of the armed forces, to misinterpret it to include right to equality in salary and status goes against the very spirit of theConstitution.

Also read: Central Armed Police Forces to finally get pay parity with their IPS counterparts

NFU to armed forces will have adverse effect on status, command and control, discipline, efficiency and morale, and reduce the desire to aspire for higher ranks. If anything, the NFU will only provide a greater degree of motivation to super ceded officers. The armed forces have enough safeguards in form of rules, regulations, law and the appraisal system to deal with errant, non-motivated and non performing officers.

NFU will result in additional financial burden on government.On 12 March 2019 the government for the first time gave out the details of the financial burden – ₹1,065 crore for arrears and ₹269 crore as annual recurring cost. If the financial burden is unbearable, then NFU should be scrapped for all services. The arrears can be given in instalments and Rs 269 crore is hardly a burden on the government.

Armed forces enjoy various prerequisites and amenities that are not available to the civil services.Most of the ‘subsidised’ amenities are available at par to the other services in one form or the other. Apart from these, the other facilities are from the armed forces private funds built up over the years through contributions by all ranks. This argument only reflects on the petty mind of the bureaucrats.

The armed forces are entitled to Military Service Pay (MSP).The MSP is based on the erstwhile Special Disturbance Allowance. It is meant to address the intangible constraints and disadvantages unique to military personnel. It is certainly not a compensation for financial loss due to stagnation which is the basis for the NFU.

Also read: If India continues to politicise military, we may not look very different from Pakistan

Either due to ignorance or guided by inappropriate advice, the governments since Independence have discriminated against the armed forces in the matter of pay and allowance. Anomalies of pay commissions are only resolved through prolonged litigation stretching over 10-15 years.

The government should be responsible enough to ensure that its policies are on an equal basis and not selective and biased against the armed forces.

The armed forces are in the hearts and minds of the public and the political parties hope to win elections by exploiting the soldiers, and yet the government is fighting them tooth and nail in courts for a mere Rs 269 crore.

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.

Separate fact from fiction, the real from the fake going viral on social media, on HoaXposed .

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When a government can boast, years into its rule, that none of its ministers has had to face a corruption case, it can mean one of two things: that the country is led by an exemplarily incorruptible set of politicians; or that the country is populated by inept journalists.

Good investigative journalism should dig out information that the government hopes to hide.When The Hindu accessed government documents and published a series of stories that suggested the Rafale deal was not quite all it was cracked up to be, written by the group’s chairperson N Ram, the Centre initially dismissed the reports.Now, the government has accused The Hindu of “stealing” documents from the Ministry of Defence and has warned that it could use the Official Secret Act, 1923, against the newspaper.The arguments presented by the government to the Supreme Court – which is currently hearing a series of review petitions regarding its December 2018 verdict that there was no need for a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the Rafale deal – appear to acknowledge three things: one, that the report is authentic; two, that it has failed to protect at least one “official secret”; three, that it is willing to use an act enforced by a paranoid colonial power under threat of losing its dominion, in order to gag the press.N Ram has contended that Article 19 (1) of the Constitution, which grants citizens the right to freedom of expression, and Sections 8 (1) and (2) of the Right to Information Act, protect his publication.One would think the reports had endangered the security of the country.What they have in fact pointed out in the series, with evidence, in that the government bypassed mandated procedures, causing a 41 per cent hike in the price; that the government did away with bank guarantees and waived anti-corruption clauses; that parallel negotiations conducted by the prime minister’s office in 2015 and by the national security advisor Ajit Doval in 2016 had prompted the Ministry of Defence to object, citing that this would weaken the position of the Indian Negotiating Team; that the Indian side’s acceptance of pricing based on an escalation formula instead of a fixed benchmark price cost the exchequer 55.6 per cent more; that the delivery schedules were not met, among other things.Does the government believe, then, that it is an “official secret” that taxpayers’ money is being unnecessarily lost?If this is the case, does the government not worry that it couldn’t guard this “secret”, even knowing that there have been demands for information on the deal both from the Parliament and the public?The petitioners have charged that government officials supplied erroneous facts during the Supreme Court’s hearing of the initial case – an extremely serious accusation.A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General was tabled several years after the deal was signed, and its findings have been challenged by the petitioners, based on the reports published by The Hindu.Can the government’s response actually be that the evidence is inadmissible because it was “stolen”?The bench will resume its hearing on March 14.At a time when the public has been growing increasingly disillusioned with the apparatus that constitutes a democracy, the three branches of governance, has the “fourth estate” finally stepped up?For too long, we have been watching talking heads on prime time television shows, debating issues in a manner that makes no real difference except to viewership ratings and in turn advertising revenue.Where were the good, solid investigative stories that have traditionally brought corrupt governments to book? Could it be possible that a government which breaks the promise printed on every bank note and turns currency to paper overnight could actually be corruption-free?There has been the occasional murmur about suspicious business dealings, about the use of political influence for personal gain, but no report has been substantiated indisputably with evidence.The media organisations which have tried to take on the government are fighting a series of defamation cases. When a government that has so far relied on claims of defamation now accuses a publication of breaching a law that was enacted to combat espionage, we know the media is doing something right.With elections round the corner, and unrest along the national borders, this would be a good time to get rid of jingoism in the press.It would be something of a delicious irony if the name “Ram” were to lose some of its resonance among the current lot of government groupies.