The distrust between the two was evident when an
army officer’s father approached the Supreme Court for succor. Will the
plummeting ties blunt the cutting edge of the armed forces?
Col R Hariharan |My space | Civil military relations|
India Legal February 26, 2018
India Legal February 26, 2018
Civil-military relations in India
have been on a downslide for a long time.
They touched a new low when the Supreme Court was
approached by a serving officer’s father to protect his son from prosecution
while performing his official duty. The Court asked the J&K government and
the centre that “no coercive action shall be taken” against Major Aditya
Kumar based on an FIR filed in connection with the death of
three civilians in alleged Army firing in Shopian last month. That the Army convoy was on bonafide military duty in an area
under the AFSPA is a matter of detail.
The Court was responding to a petition filed by Lt Col Karamveer Singh
challenging the action taken against his son who was named wrongly under sections 303, 307 and 3336 of the Ranbir Penal
Code. The Court also issued a notice to seeking the
response of the state and centre within
two weeks. Incidentally, the Ranbir Penal Code or RPC is a criminal
code applicable in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). IPC is not applicable under
Article 370 of the Constitution.
In addition, the
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken cognizance of a complaint by
three children of Army officers alleging violation of human rights of the army
personnel in recent incidents in the state. NHRC has sought a “factual report”
from the Ministry of Defence in four weeks. The
children have also appealed to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) against the
violation of human rights of soldiers, adding an unsavoury international dimension
to the issue.
Apathy, confusion and contradiction sum up the present state
of civil-military relations. While the
centre has not been able to overcome its indifference, state governments are no
better. The mess in J&K is a
testimony to the mindless way in which the BJP-PDP
coalition government headed by Mehbooba Mufti is functioning. For too long, this coalition of convenience
had been running with the hare and hunting with the horses at the same time. Driven by the sole desire to continue in
power, Mehbooba has been adopting a soft approach to lynch mobs and Pak Fifth Columns
targeting the security forces, while “cooperating” with the centre in the operations
against infiltrating terrorists. And the BJP in the state, with its
double-speak, bears equal responsibility for this.
The J and K government's handling of the "killing" of
three stone throwers by an army convoy escort on January 27 in Shopian is a
case study of botched civil-military relations. Though the army escort fired to protect the
convoy from the mob which damaged army vehicles and injured seven soldiers,
including a JCO seriously, Mehbooba wasted no time in registering an FIR
against Major Aditya and his unit on charges of murder, attempt to murder and endangering
life.
Former
army chief General VP Malik tweeted that the incident affected the morale of
security forces working on the ground. He also found political leaders’ silence
inexplicable. However, a media report quoted
Mehbooba as saying “I do not
accept that the Army gets demoralised by such actions. The Army is an
institution and has done a wonderful job. But a black sheep can be anywhere….
If some Army officer has committed a mistake, an FIR has been lodged and it is
the duty of the government to take it to a logical conclusion.”
Mehbooba had also
mentioned that she had reported the matter to Union Minister of Defence Nirmala
Sitharaman. The minister broke her stoic silence on the CM’s statement only
when she visited J&K when terrorists carried out two more attacks on
security forces a few days later. While an attack on CRPF camp was thwarted in
time, the one on family quarters in Sunjuwan garrison was prolonged and four
soldiers and one civilian were killed.
The defence minister during her visit referred to the FIR on army
personnel and reassured: “The government and MoD will stand by the Army, which
is working under severe duress in J&K. We will not let our soldiers down.”
Her words would have carried more credibility, had the state government
immediately withdrawn the FIR issued against Major Aditya and his unit. Evidently, the CM is looking for a
politically opportune moment to withdraw the FIR or just ignore Sitharaman. In
the meanwhile, Major Aditya will be kept on tenterhooks for the next few months
or years, while the state pushes the case to its “logical conclusion,” whatever
it is.
In the light of these happenings, the army has no option but to
develop a thick skin to survive as a fighting force in the present political
environment. Troops fighting terrorists
on the one hand will also now have to fend off the state government harassment. Former IG of BSF Bhola Nath’s tweet
neatly summed up situation: “My country, you throw ink, egg or shoe at any
leader, you will get arrested on the spot immediately. But if you throw stones
on forces, army….Army men may be arrested! Do we see such act of stone throwing
on Forces in any other countries?” How much these mindless pinpricks will affect
the fighting edge of the armed forces, while the civil administration hunts for
black sheep among troops, is an open question.
The spontaneous flood of sympathy for
the army in the social, print and electronic media was welcome, it does not
appear to have shaken up the apathy of the political class. Their callousness
was evident when a National Conference member of the J and K assembly shouted “Pakistan
zindabad” during the assembly session, even as the bodies of dead soldiers were
being prepared for funeral. For political class, it was business as usual.
The military fraternity, which is
usually only seen and not heard, has become vocal about the Shopian incident
because it adds to their angst about the government’s failure to live up to its
promises on issues affecting national security and military’s professional
capability. The low priority defence forces enjoy in the national scheme of
things became evident when the prime minister and defence minister did not
attend the army chief’s Army Day reception to the president for the first time
ever.
Let alone the “One Rank One Pension”
issue that left some residual bitterness and Pay Commission woes of the armed
forces, many other proposals for making up the deficiencies in the armed
forces’ command and control set-up and fire power continue to be caught in bureaucratic
red tape and the compulsions of make in India. Ashley Tellis, a
senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has eloquently summed
up the current state of affairs: “The structures that are dysfunctional, that
have stopped the military from making smart choices, are still there…It's not
the way to run a military of a major power. It has to be among the worst
procurement processes of any major power.”
Our
potential adversaries - China and Pakistan - have evolved two extreme models of
civil-relations, which recognize the armed forces’ role in shaping the nation’s
destiny. President Xi Jinping in his quest for consolidation of power has made
“civil military integration” (CMI) his priority. It is one subject he refers as
frequently in his speeches as the Bridge and Road Initiative and “the Chinese
dream.” The State Council’s Information office on China’s military strategy in May
2015 envisages the creation of “an all element, multi-domain and cost-
efficient pattern of CMI.” China is
systematically implementing the plan to optimise its military and civil
capabilities in tandem to create a smooth organisational structure that would
holistically strengthen the country’s national security.
The Pakistan
army has always been involved in civil administration. Even now when an elected government is in
power, the army continues to call the shots on how the civil administration behaves.
The services chiefs brief the parliament on security matters from and decisions
are taken through “consensus.”
As a democracy, India can take
cue from the US and UK where civil military relations are founded on the bedrock
of what Samuel Huntington calls “objective civilian control.” Our leaders would
do well to follow the US Secretary of defence James Mattis’ advice: “The
key to healthy civil-military relations
is trust on both the civilian and military sides of the negotiation: the
civilian must trust the military to provide its best and most objective advice
but then carry out any policy that civilian decision makers ultimately choose.
The military must trust the civilians to give a fair hearing of military advice
and not reject it out of hand, especially for transparently political reasons.
Civilians must understand that dissent is not same as disobedience.”
Unless the government shows
greater interest and changes its patchy response to military issues, it may blunt
the cutting edge of the armed forces. That would be a monumental tragedy for
the country.
-The
writer is a military intelligence specialist on South Asia, associated with the
Chennai Centre for China Studies and the International Law and Strategic
Analysis Institute
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