Clouds Over Chetwode’s Credo : Indian Army’s Apolitical and Secular Character under Threat

Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode’s inaugural speech delivered on 10 December 1932 at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) Dehradun set the tone and tenor of military professionalism in India. The Field Marshal’s speech contained two pieces of advice for the Gentlemen Cadets. 

The first piece of advice urged the young cadets to remember that “An Army can have no politics. It is the paid servant of the people and is at the disposal of the Government of the day, whatever may be the political complexion of that Government.” 

His second advice outlined the three guiding principles that place the honour of the country above every other concern of a military officer. 

In early 1930s, Chetwode’s insistence on keeping the army politics-free was to dissuade nationalist youth from joining the newly Indianized army and challenging the validity of the empire. The Indian state that was neither based on ideology or theology opted for its army to remain moored to an apolitical and secular ethos and thus Chetwode continued to be relevant post-independence. 

Today, the Chetwode’s code of military professionalism is flagrantly violated. The Indian military is no longer blasé about politics. Politics is no longer a taboo in army messes and naval wardrooms because it is openly discussed by serving officers on social media. 

The social-media posts by many serving officers largely echo the aggressive-nationalist sentiments expressed by the right-wing politicians. Only on rare occasions one gets to hear a contrarian view from a serving officer. 

Forget left-wing views, the officers who believe in Field Marshal Chetwode’s credo are also reticent. They feel constrained to bring a modicum of balance in the discourse. 

Some social media comments make one wonder if the Supreme Commander of the armed forces is the Prime Minister and not the President. The fact is that boundaries that distinguish military personnel from civilians in context of their political participation are getting eroded. 

Looking at social media trends and the brazen manner in which rabid right-wing propaganda is posted and forwarded by serving military officers, it is not far-fetched to imagine that the top military leadership in the country is fully aware of it. From time to time the military establishment has been issuing directions for armed forces personnel to refrain from commenting on social media. However, the fact that instructions are going unheeded clearly shows that there is lack of will on part of the service headquarters to impose discipline. 

Take for example the Navy Foundation, a body of former naval officers. The Delhi chapter of the foundation is regularly involved in spreading communal agenda. The Hindu reported about the 20 October 2015 newsletter of the Navy Foundation that featured an article with negative references to the minority community.[1] 

A few retired senior naval officers also informed the naval headquarters about this. In December last year the Naval Chief reiterated that “Every ship of the Indian Navy is a microcosm of India, where we have personnel from every single state, including every religion as well.” 

The Indian Navy  neither indulges in invoking any religious text before casting off or launching its missiles, nor does it employ and religious gurus to help its sailors in need. In fact, the Indian Navy, prohibits the display of images of Gods or religious symbols in sailors’ mess decks or any other part of the ship. 

One cannot deny the retired community their right to politics, but can the Naval Foundation that is directly linked to the Naval Headquarters web-portal be allowed to post communal and political propaganda material. Such partisan trends are indicative of the deep malaise that has gradually crept into the armed forces over the past few years. 

There is a distinction between serving a constitutionally elected government (the BJP) and serving the ideology (the RSS) that the government believes in. The Right-Wing nationalist discourse that conflates religion with the state has set in motion a chain of confusion. where honoring the cow is seen as equivalent to serving the country. Armed forces are an important ingredient in the right-wing recipe of aggressive nationalism. In order to appease its ideological master, the ruling dispensation at the center wants the armed forces barricaded within the sacred walls of Hindutva. Just as the Turkish army is considered to be the “home of the Prophet,” the RSS perhaps prefers to confine the Indian army to a home of some Hindu God. 

The use of armed forces by the right-wing for political purposes is a menace. The martyrs in J &K were brazenly politicized in the recent controversy in which nationalism of India’s premier university was questioned by some media houses using doctored videos. Last week, a Hindi news channel, IBN 7 interviewed Havildar Sudhir Kumar Yadav in uniform, where he spoke against the against JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, taking absolutely similar position as propagated by the RSS.[2]

Such blatant use of a serving army man in political fight is unprecedented. The forces behind this sinister propaganda are unaware of the dangerous consequences of mixing armed forces and politics. In all probability the video could be doctored, because after a few hours of its broadcast it was removed from the website of the channel, however, IBN7 did carry a story on their website that mentioned about the interview. However, if the interviewee is service personnel then it has to be seen what action army headquarter takes against him for such indiscipline. 

Ajai Shukla, India’s foremost defence journalist in his article titled “Armyism” published in Business Standard, gives us more examples where the government has involved the armed forces in religious functions like Yoga Day.[3] 

The government is scaling up the military to a pedestal where questioning or criticizing the military becomes sacrilegious and paradoxically it is engaged in ridiculing its just demands for OROP and other allowances in the seventh pay commission. Adding insult to injury, the government approved deployment of army personnel and equipment for building pontoon bridges for a private function of Sri Sri Ravishankar, a religious guru. As if this was not enough, the government acted in a ham-handed manner and arrested a 75-year old veteran, an office bearer of the ex-servicemen organization struggling for just and legitimate pension rights. 

The rightward politicization of the military is disturbing the civil-military equilibrium and militates against the tenets of a democratic state. The dangers inherent in these trends need to be debated by social scientists as well as military studies experts. These developments have the power to boost the army’s propensity to acquire political power or as Field Marshal Chetwode warned in his 1932 speech, “Once there is any suspicion that an Army, or any part of it is biased politically, from that moment the Army has lost the hill confidence of the nation who pays for it. It is no longer impartial, and that way lies chaos and civil war.” 

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[1] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/controversial-remarks-in-navy-foundation-newsletter/article7798041.ece

[2] http://khabar.ibnlive.com/news/desh/kanhaiya-kumar-army-sudhir-kumar-yadav-jnu-kashmir-rape-460405.html

[3] http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/ajai-shukla-armyism-116031401233_1.html

THE STORY OF OPPRESSION IN A DALIT NAME

Some 20 years ago, I came face-to-face with this Dalit reality while serving on board an Indian naval destroyer. As officer of the day (OOD) I embarked on my 'rounds' of the ship at 9 PM sharp. The quartermaster at the gangway piped and announced the commencement of rounds on the ship's PA system. This was to alert all the 'off-working hour' duty personnel to be on their post to report cleanship and safety of their part of the ship.

Besides, inspecting the mess decks and galleys the OOD also inspects the bathrooms and toilets during the rounds. The job of cleaning the toilets is done by a special branch in the Navy known as "Topass''. To accord a modicum of dignity to sailors of the Topass branch, the navy calls them “sanitary hygienists”. The education eligibility or entry into this branch is VI standard.

During my rounds a young duty-Topass was standing outside the sailor's toilets to report. He saluted me, I reciprocated. But my eyes shifted to his faded name tally, which hardly revealed his name.

I asked him his name.

He replied, NAHAK.

I said, NAYAK form Orissa.

He said, no sir, my name is NAHAK and I am from Orissa.

I reconfirmed.

The moment he repeated Nahak, I remembered these lines from a poem by Faiz, "Sheeshe ka Messiah",

"Tum Nahak Tudke chun chun kar daaman mein Chipaee bethe hou..."

I told myself but NAHAK means USELESS. How could a person be named USELESS?

I finished the rounds, went back to the wardroom, lit a cigarette and thought to myself... in that one particular name there is so much history. It shouts out the story of centuries of Dalit oppression and exploitation in India.

Nahak’s name is his pain and his reality. It is much more than the pain Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) felt in Dewaar when he understands the meaning of the words, “Mera Baap chor hai”, inscribed on his arm by the oppressing classes to remind him of his status and position in the  society.  

 

Indian Navy’s New Strategy Fails to Track the Oceanic Decline

In less than a decade, the Indian Navy has revised its strategic outlook. The latest vision statement, Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy was released on October 26, 2015. Besides internal communication there are two reasons that the capital-intensive navy has to periodically justify its role and mission. First, to address the controllers of the national purse strings and secondly to cater to the changing international security environment. The budgetary authorities find the history of European navies that brought colonialism to Asian shores an inadequate justification for a strong Navy. Therefore, the latest document attempts to educate the defense bureaucracy that the Indian Navy needs multi-billion dollar investments in modern naval platforms because it is all set to assume its pan-oceanic role and is no longer confined to performing coastal and constabulary functions.

The second palpable reason for publication of the strategy is geo-political changes since the publication of Freedom to Use the Seas: India’s Maritime Strategy in 2007. The growing Chinese challenge to American hegemony in Asia; the repositioning of US naval assets to Asia-Pacific; Japan’s metamorphosis from a pacifist to a ‘normal’ aggressive power and India’s ambition to pop out of the strategic closet, to make security of oceanic trade lanes the dominant discourse.

The strength of the strategic document is the clarity with which it articulates the Indian Navy’s need to grow in tune with the government’s ‘Act East’ policy and the desire to play a larger role in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and beyond. It balances Navy’s obligations in coastal waters with its customary zeal to perform ‘out of area’ while remaining rooted to ‘principles of self-defense and the tenets of Panchsheel’.

Navies and trade are Siamese twins. The US Office of Naval Intelligence reiterated this reality in its 1922 document - The US Navy as an Industrial Asset that articulated the Navy’s role in protecting and furthering overseas investments for US business leaders. The ‘way points’ – the guiding principles in the latest strategic outline refer to navy-business association in terms of ‘Navy for National Development’. However, it explicitly states that its primary role is to play a decisive role in ‘preventing war and conflict’ and ‘bringing it to conclusion’. The document does not shy away from acknowledging the centrality of ‘sea control’ during conflict as a prerequisite for most naval operations’. The earlier documents refrained from talking about this aspect primarily because establishing ‘hostile zones’ and being a net security provider is a difficult proposition.

The document makes nuanced distinction between coastal security and coastal defense. Coast Guard is one of the main stakeholder in coastal security however, defending the coast against external aggression and invasion falls within the naval purview. This is important because a stream of post-Cold war invasions by the US Navy in the Middle East have shown that small and medium navies are incapable of offering resistance against assault by big navies. The total paralysis of Iraqi and Libyan navies in the wake of the US invasion informs that coastal defense strategy should be the lynchpin of any naval strategy rooted in defending the nation. Traditional ways are grossly inadequate. Medium navies must focus on devising innovative technologies to tackle invasions.

The recent Indian Maritime Security Strategy doesn’t skirt the issue of new technologies and grants it adequate space. However, there is much more ground that needs to be covered. Take for example, LOCUST- Low-Cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarming Technology program, the latest technology that the US navy is on the verge of perfecting. LOCUST systems are designed to launch a number of networked autonomous, surface, subsurface and aerial drone’s in offensive mode. A simpler analogy is to visualize the coordinated attack by ‘Tidi Dal’ on cotton crops in India. The US started research on these technologies about fifteen years ago and is now experimenting with 3-D printers to build these swarm drones on board ships. By now these concepts should be a part Indian Navy’s strategic lexicon.

The strategy-blue print sends important signals to two important maritime stakeholders. Emphasis on future naval warfare informs design and technical institutes in the country to imagine the possibilities of using civilian technologies like 3-D printers for naval use. It also forewarns naval architects to be prepared to face the challenges of integrating newer technologies with old platforms that are likely to be in operation till at least 2035.

Like most strategic discourses, Indian Maritime Security Strategy adheres to the concept of ‘fixity’ that hinges on rigidity and repetition. One disagrees with the basic premise of the document that ‘the 21st century will be the century of the seas for India and that the seas will remain a key enabler in her global resurgence’. Both technology and shifting power balance in the global political economy is challenging the Western ‘Command of the Commons’. Cyber technologies, and changes in oil economy are denting the importance of Sea Lanes of Communication. However, the biggest threat that sea power faces today is from the Chinese ‘Belt and Road’ initiative that envisages providing alternative routes for international trade. The Eurasian rail and road links, extending from China to Europe through central Asia and Russia are designed to attract a huge amount of international trade away from the Oceans. In a few years’ time it may become factually incorrect to say that 90 per cent of the global trade flows through the Oceans. Once Oceans are not the first choice for international trade, the relevance of the Western navies will be challenged. This could be the biggest blow to Western hegemony that has sustained itself for past centuries by commanding the service sector – the insurance and re-insurance regimes- on the global commons. This aspect needs to be included in all our strategies because our alliances and force levels will be largely determined by changes in the global political economy.