Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

needed. The numbers that join are inadequate and
many of them retire prematurely. Evidently, the
profession of arms is not attractive to the Indian
middle class of today. Yet no attempt was made
by the Pay Commission to upgrade the officer
ranks to levels equivalent to their civilian counterparts.
Nor was the Ministry of Defence sensitive
enough to tell the rest of Government to rectify
the lacunae left by the
Commission. The Defence
Minister appears to have behaved
like a postmaster, passing
on what he had received.
Although, TV viewers have
watched for weeks the dissatisfaction
reflected by the
chiefs of all the three wings -
Army, Navy and Air Force.
Do we not realise that the soldier’s
training is longer, tougher and therefore his entry
into service more difficult than a civilian’s? And
then, his promotion is slower except in war time.
It takes up to 35 years to rise to be a Major General
whereas to become a Joint Secretary can be
a matter of only 17 years. Thereafter, the soldier
retires early, the Major General four years earlier
than a Joint Secretary; a Colonel as early as 52.
The soldier has to remain in continual training;
the civilian can sit back, take life easy after securing
his appointment. Not to speak of the risk
and the roughness of the battlefield.
The root of the discrimination could well
be the vantage point captured by the ICS officers
who were the representatives of the masters of
India, namely the British. The IAS officers inherited
the sceptre of authority; their importance grew
in inverse proportion to the decline in the quality
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of the politician. Today, how many Ministers have
a true grip over the subject of their portfolios?
The disproportionate power and influence that has
thus fallen into the lap of the bureaucrat are reflected
in what the successive Pay Commissions
have been recommending.
During the same British rule, the armed
forces were under the Commander-in-Chief and
not directly under the Governor-General
or Viceroy. In the
bargain, the soldier remained
on the sidelines of Government
and, incidentally, had to
tolerate the status of a national
chowkidar in the eyes of the
bureaucrat. To illustrate the
point, look at Pakistan. There,
with the advent of Field Marshal
Ayub Khan to civilian power, the soldier
ceased to be a mulazim and became a malik. The
civilian slipped to a subordinate position. This is
not to suggest that such an equation is desirable;
certainly not. Nor, however, is the situation in India.
A balance of importance is the answer.
We must not forget that so much of our
territory is in Pakistani and Chinese hands and a
great deal more is under claim by Beijing. The
Kashmir Valley is a bleeding sore while the
Maoists and the Islamists may well provoke military
intervention at some stage. Assam, Mizoram
and Nagaland did require army help in the course
of time. Pakistan may not pose a live danger while
the Al Qaeda and Taliban are at the tail of
Islamabad but what if these extremists were to
cross the Indus? How can the people of India
tolerate their armed forces being discounted collectively
and disgruntled individually?
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna