The Government wants to consider ‘merit’ over ‘seniority’. Why does the military establishment get un-nerved whenever this topic is brought up in media? Why do ex-chiefs rally behind the establishment? The standard argument of ‘politicisation’ does not go down well when the ‘merit’ and ‘seniority’ are debated. Seniority simply means that the armed forces have made a strict seniority list and the government becomes a rubber stamp to sign the appointment of the senior most. When government says it will consider ‘merit’, the apple cart, so beautifully stacked by the Chief gets toppled.
If all Lieutenant Generals are capable and meritorious, why then the sudden discomfort on letting the political establishment pick up any one of them, who, in the first place, were ‘meritorious enough to head operational Commands’? What is the basis of seniority? Is it date of birth? Date of Commission? Or is it the policies crafted beautifully that weed out more capable officers to let the Chief pre-decide his successor? A Lieutenant General ‘must’ Command an Operational Command to be considered for a Chiefs promotion. The very Chief denies few Lt Generals Command of an Operational Command to ensure that the criteria set by him is not fulfilled and the office is denied elevation.
Is there a ‘merit’ in Government wanting to use it as the selection criteria? Government’s capability and ability to judge merit was covered in the ‘EDITORIAL 11 AUG 2021: ARMED FORCES – POLITICISATION VIA MERITOCRACY’
Carefully planned succession planning by incumbent Chief, Army Commanders and Vice Chiefs is a known fact when it comes to ‘succession planning’. Each has his own favourites. Merit is the last criteria in such favouritism. The fight for the top post is brutal with no quarters given. It is all about Infantry, Armoured, Artillery and Engineers. Engineers has produced some of the finest strategic thinkers but have been weeded out before reaching the start line for Chief’s promotion.
Of the 28 Chiefs so far, 17 are from Infantry, six from Armoured Corps and five from Artillery. Within Infantry Gorkhas with 41 battalions has given four Chiefs, two back to back now and two about 40-50 years back. With average of 16-22 battalions per regiment, Gorkhas should have had at best two Chiefs. Armoured with approximate 80 units should have had four Chiefs but had six.
At core is the internal fight to not let the officers of the three combat arms rise. The culling starts from Colonel’s rank. The most capable officers from Engineers and Artillery are weeded out to reduce competition for Infantry and Armoured. The finite number of Brigadiers are known by the entire environment by their arms, seniority, entry, date of birth, courses done, gallantry awards etc. Within each combat arm inter-se merit is known and the race is to remain in the run by being in the top order, each year, year on year.
The requirement to be completely subservient is mandatory and from the age of 40-42 years the officers learn the tricks the major being the learning that the boss is always right. This carries on right up to Lt Generals. None speaks and each is master by then to know which bell to ring for the doors of their ambition to open. Mind you all are professionally competent but trained not to speak.
Does military and in particular Army have a ‘seniority’ based promotion system from a Lieutenant upwards? Why does the seniority become such a sensitive issue when it comes to Chief’s appointment? From a Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel the promotions are based on ‘time’, i.e., a Capt in xx years, a Major in xx years and a Lt Colonel in xx years. The entire course picks up the rank on the same day. Few promotion criteria need to be fulfilled and there you are, at 13 years everyone wears Lt Colonels rank. How many ranks are left thereafter? Colonel, Brigadier, Major General and Lt General- just four ranks. The retirement dates for each rank are fixed. Officers at the rank of Colonel would retire at 54, Brigadier at 56 and Major General at 58. Currently, there is a proposal to retire them at 57, 58 and 59 years, respectively. With the retirement ages fixed, the question of ‘when’ will one be promoted is based on ‘Promotion Boards’ which take up promotions by batch, which means the year of batch is announced, e.g., all officers commissioned in 2005 will come up for Colonels promotion board in 2021. With one board each year, an officer of 2013 commission year knows that he may come up for Colonels promotion in the year 2029. Thus each rank knows the general program of yearly promotions.
The Infantry gives itself the ‘right’ to Command. As per Infantry they are the only soldiers and deserve all promotions. The policies are made infantry friendly. They look down upon Artillery, Armoured and Engineers. All other arms and services are not even considered. By sheer numbers infantry outnumbers every arm and occupies every important chair exactly like IAS occupies all important positions in government. Their manipulation of yearly boards for promotion places one batch ahead of another, or give two years gap. An infantry officer will become a Brigadier earlier than an artillery officer. They introduce policies where an artillery Brigadier must command an Infantry Brigade after commanding an artillery brigade, the same gets applicable to engineers but not to armoured. This is a 24X7 play with batches, ranks and combat arms so far as the end result is infantry has more officers at Major General level.
This is not about infantry, when Artillery or Armoured have their say, they manipulate policies to pull up their officers. Infantry suffers at the hands of both Artillery and Armoured. These games are played each day and policies are manipulated to suit one or other. Each year a large number of highly qualified and meritorious officers are overlooked in promotions to all the four ranks. The churn is continuous and the weeding out of highly competent officers continues without remorse. ‘My’ Regiment, ‘My’ arm, ‘My’ unit, ‘My’ school’, ‘My’ NDA, ‘My’ Sainik School, ‘My’ RIMC, ‘My’ Lanyard and the list goes on. The cross cultural fit defies any logic so far as the preferred lot rises a level up.
Two thirds of Colonels do not make it to Brigadiers rank, of the 1/3rd that do, 2/3rd of this 1/3rd do not reach Major Generals rank. 1/3rd of the Major Generals reach Lt Generals Rank. To explain, of the 1200 Colonels, 300 will become Brigadiers, of these 300, 100 will become Major Generals and of these 100, 30-32 will reach to Lt Generals rank. A policy splits the Brigadiers into ‘Command’ and ‘Staff’. The Staff stream cannot command. The above figures are now divided by two! The churn is endless. The weeding out a continuous process. All of this is done to let the preferred lot squeeze in to next higher rank.
The positive side is, professionally all Colonels and Brigadiers are professionally highly qualified but the issue is not about their being qualified, the issue is a huge number of Colonels who are much more competent than this lot who are not promoted to Colonels who are systematically weeded out. The nation trusts armed forces to guard the nation and only the best need to be promoted. It does not happen that way. Soon at each level some of the finest from each batch are superseded as a result of the manipulated policies. The Brigadiers and Major Generals are competent but the more competent are left behind. All this is part of the succession planning and the military nepotism. To brush it off saying that it happens in every field is taking national security too lightly.
When Government says it prefers ‘merit’ it has no idea what merit is. The army has in a planned manner removed the most meritorious and capable officers from the system. So the argument of ‘merit’ is a non-starter and both the Government and the Army should not use it to let Govt ‘enter’ armed forces and Armed Forces to say that it has promoted officers on merit . The Army cannot use this argument for promotions.
Where in this editorial have you found ‘seniority’ so strongly supported by army? It comes as a criteria at no rank from Colonel to Lt General so from where has this ‘seniority’ argument come from?
With both ‘merit’ and ‘seniority’ not being issues, both Government and Military will do the nation a great favour by not ‘shadow boxing’. Military needs to clean up the selection system to let the best come up. The best will have a tongue and the strength to speak. Is the Government ready to listen? Or is the Army ready to let them come up?
Is there a ‘merit’ in the argument of ‘seniority’ or is there a merit in the argument of ‘meritocracy’?
Col Sanjay Pande
© Copyright
Recent Posts
Mr Macha was born about two weeks ago. He is the first case where he grew each day by one year! He is 19 years old today. Mr Macha is all fun, frolic, health conscious and really cares about...
2012-Present : Advisor-Consultant for MNCs (Multi National Companies) Details covered separately on the website. 2012 - Present Kshemin Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Founded an independent...