11 AUG 2021: ARMED FORCES – POLITICISATION VIA MERITOCRACY

A ‘brilliant’ move by the Government to promote ‘merit based promotions’ at top levels simply reveals its ‘hidden intent’ to politicise the armed forces. The move is ‘brilliant’ since in the garb of ‘merit’ the political class wants to control the armed forces without having any insight into the functioning. It assumes that ‘control’ of armed forces is through ‘senior most ranks.

While the merit is preferred, it requires someone with knowledge to understand it. The ‘Government’ means the ‘political class + bureaucracy in the background’. Last seventy three years have displayed utter lack on strategic vision in both. The absence is evident by the state of the national security today. The Army has expanded in a lopsided manner completely disregarding the threat scenario. There is marked distrust between armed forces and the Government. At core is procurement, the only guaranteed day-to-day activity. Procurement takes years due to bureaucratic delays and by the time it materialises the equipment is outdated. Years of work on equipping army comes to naught till another national emergency hits the nation. Armed forces, on the other hand, are notorious for making specifications that cannot be fulfilled or may be just one vendor qualifies. It gives the impression that everything has been decided beforehand and the bureaucracy needs to simply sign. This creates a situation where entire procurement suffers. There is another side too. The armed forces do not let any vendor come in unless registered and it is impossible to register as a new vendor. Procurement is mostly a peace time activity where only bureaucracy and armed forces are involved. Political class has no knowledge and hence focuses of big ticket procurements.

On national security issues the clash is even more prominent. While the armed forces want the national security to be guided by their wisdom, the internal security remains outside its domain. Security in the neighbourhood region is guided by bureaucracy and foreign service completely in isolation. Military has not been able to make the ‘Government’ see the security threat in the neighbourhood. For 73 years China has never been part of its ‘threat’ more due to the political class and the bureaucracy ‘laughing it out’ at any suggestion by military to regard it as threat. The foreign service is as much to blame. Their importance and central stage cannot be disturbed by the military mindset, which as per them is limited by the geographical ‘threat’ to India by its neighbours. They deal with the ‘nations’ whereas military deals with international borders/LoC or LAC. The bureaucracy ensures that no military person comes close to the political class. Military on the other side knows that it must completely bypass bureaucracy to get close to politicians have an ear for them.

Military on the other hand has not excelled in its job. In the garb of ‘merit’ it has devised an internal system that simply lets only the preferred people rise the chain. The organisational structure helps the military, or conversely, military has completely moulded the internal systems to promote their own interests. For one Lt General, there are at least 25 officers more capable who are expelled by the system deliberately much before reaching the rank of a Colonel/Brigadier. The ‘selection’ of Brigadiers, Major Generals and Lt Generals is decided by the senior lot exactly the way people are picked up and groomed in political parties for future of the party. Within Army, Infantry has an iron claw the way IAS has on administration. Other arms just cannot come up. With one stroke the complete merit of other arms is taken care of. Within Infantry the class of regiments, entry, etc., are used to further weed out. Army is a closed organisation and with just few entry level doors, the preferred class get pushed up. Where exactly is the ‘merit’? Being a fiercely competitive organisation, people at senior ranks are meritorious but probably from the lowest bracket. All better officers are weeded out methodically.

Whether it is the bureaucracy or the military, the state is similar. On one hand there is bureaucracy with no military exposure and completely chair bound and direct access to the political class and on other is the military which has completely weeded out merit in favour of the preferred class of officers being pushed up the ladder. As on date both have proved to be ineffective in their work.

Now comes the political class. The grass root politicians spend their public life with people and resolving issues. Throughout their journey to the position of power they have no exposure to military. Military on the other hand does not entertain political class at any level, from top to bottom. Defence and Strategy, by practice, has no importance in India unlike Israel. The politicians rise and occupy the top positions with no or zero knowledge of matters military. They have deep distrust on military since from their young age to the ultimate rise in power, they remain neglected my military. Evan after becoming union ministers only a select few get a peep inside military. Within the Defence Ministry even a Minister of State, unless mandated, cannot get involved with Army. That just leaves two ministers, the Prime Minister, and the defence minister with complete access to the armed forces. Practically, the political class has no knowledge of anything to do with military. They are completely dependent on bureaucracy, whose relationship with military has been covered. India, despite numerous political parties, has been ruled by just two parties. Both parties have just one thing in common, just one person and his opinion matters. The professionals might say one thing, but what matters is what the head of the party and the head of the government feels. There is simply no place for debate. Be it Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi nor Modi. Short stints of other Prime Ministers had no impact on policy.

There is a big difference though in Military and Politics. Military is required to be ‘professional’ whereas a politician is required to be ‘popular’. While ‘pulling up’ is acceptable norm in politics, it is bane in Military. Military wants its ‘seniority’ list to be followed blaming ‘politicisation’ to protect its power to ‘pull up’ officers. The result is of the 25 who should have got a fair chance to rise to the Lt Generals rank, most of the times it is the preferred ‘25^th’ who occupies the place. Military markets them as ‘meritorious. When Government wants ‘merit’ to be selected it completely upsets military succession planning so deeply rooted and supported by written policies. Within the visible ‘meritorious’ there is a deep succession planning. There may be three or four different succession chains, unknown to each other.

So, who defines merit? What is merit? While the Government announces ‘merit based selection of top brass’, who will select? Both the political class and the bureaucracy have absolutely no idea of military and the military has ensured that the meritorious are weeded out in a planned manner. While Government assumes that all top brass is ‘meritorious’ and the best should be selected, it has no knowledge on how to define merit. Army sticks to seniority principle since if not followed, its careful work on succession planning is destroyed overnight.

Now you see the ‘brilliance’ of the Government? Politicisation is now covered under the garb of merit and caste, creed, religion, region, reach etc., the only language a politician understands, takes over the selection. Military officers being extremely ambitious understand this well and start their hard work to run after politicians. Will bureaucracy be silent?

‘Merit’ as being used by politicians, ‘Merit’ as being projected by military and ‘Merit’ as being played with by bureaucracy has different meaning for each. While a politician wants to control military through handpicked people, military manipulates the very same merit internally to weed out ‘merit’, and bureaucracy always come out as winners while India suffers. Small minds think small, it takes a man with macro understanding and micro execution to handle issues.

How does this political class backed by bureaucracy define ‘merit’?