MARCH

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Surya Gangadharan
he Navy is under tremendous
pressure," said the former vice chief
“Tof naval staff. "I've commanded
ships that were 30 years old and we had to be
extra careful. The same problem is with the
submarines, they are old and getting older.
No matter how careful you are things can
happen."
Things can and did happen. After
two officers died of asphyxiation on
the INS Sindhuratna in February, Navy
Chief Admiral DK Joshi quit, taking
moral responsibility for that (and other
mishaps). His action was unexpected
but not without precedent: In 2005
Admiral Arun Prakash offered to resign
over the naval war room leak case. The
government refused to accept it.
Admiral Prakash, many years Joshi’s
senior, lauded his decision to resign.
“The tradition in India is not to own
up moral responsibility. Most of the
accidents were trivial incidents like a
ship touching a jetty or a submarine
being caught in low tide, for which a
chief cannot be held responsible. Our
politicians and bureaucrats should take
a hint from Admiral Joshi's conduct."
But Prakash and Joshi are in a
minority. No air chief ever took
responsibility for the repeated crashes
of MiG-21 aircraft and the loss of so
many pilots. Nor for that matter did any
defence minister or defence secretary.
As Admiral Prakash put it, “had the
government ensured actual integration
of Naval Headquarters with the MoD,
the latter should have borne collective
responsibility for whatever happened,
and Admiral Joshi’s resignation need
not have been accepted.
However, the armed forces HQs
remain outside the MoD, whose
approval they need for each and
every activity. The Chiefs carry full
responsibility for their Service —
operational and administrative — but
they have no locus standi in the MoD.”
It may come as a surprise but it is
actually the defence secretary who is
assigned with the “defence of India
and for the three armed forces HQs”.
But when things go wrong, he bears no
accountability.
So what happens now? Priority is
to appoint a successor to Joshi, which
is already in the works. But the larger
issue remains: Will Joshi’s resignation
serve as a wake up call to the Defence
Ministry to respond to the navy’s
pleas over so many years to speed up
procurement?
The Navy had started warning the
9
The last decade has been less than
satisfactory for the Indian military.
Ineptitude and turpitude has permeated
the civil-military combine and the
political leadership across the divide
has not been able to extricate itself
from the Bofors shadow and the trading
of allegations.
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UNNERVED: AK Antony, Defence Minister