4 October 2013

by Praful Bidwai

Indians have long, and rightly, taken pride in the robustness and durability of their country’s democracy (interrupted only during the Emergency), and the relatively apolitical nature of its armed forces. India stands in sharp contrast to many Third World countries where the military has meddled in politics, or defied and suborned the civilian leadership, or directly usurped power.

However, recent disclosures of former army chief VK Singh’s shenanigans, as well as other developments pertaining to tensions between the army and civilian-political leadership, demand a severe revision of this complacent assumption—and some urgent corrective action.

Gen Singh, The Indian Express has revealed, set up a secret intelligence unit called the Technical Services Division (TSD) to conduct a series of “unauthorised” operations. These included funding politicians to destabilise the Omar Abdullah government in Jammu and Kashmir, paying an NGO to help change the line of succession in the army, creating espionage units against Pakistan, and buying sophisticated telephone interception equipment to eavesdrop on fellow-officers.

These allegations—apparently based on defence ministry documents—are, to put it mildly, grave. They warrant serious disciplinary action. Gen Singh hasn’t denied them. On the contrary, he has said he did nothing unusual: The army has always paid off politicians from all parties, and “all the ministers” in Jammu & Kashmir to “stabilise” the situation there, win the people’s “hearts and minds”, and “wean them” away from separatist militancy.

These claims have been stoutly denied by eight former army chiefs, who stress that the sadbhavna (harmony) programme, run by the army to create popular goodwill through education, culture and tourism, has nothing to do with the covert operations that Gen Singh stands accused of.

Whatever the truth, the disclosures have inflicted grievous damage upon the legitimacy of the Indian state’s democracy project in Kashmir, called into question the integrity of the armed forces, and strengthened those who believe that New Delhi tries to integrate the Kashmiri people into the Indian Union through manipulation and fraud, when not using brutal force.

Only a full high-level inquiry into Gen Singh’s conduct and the TSD’s operations will reveal the extent of the malaise. The inquiry must cover the general’s protracted, bruising battle with the defence ministry over his date of birth, and the allegation that two army units moved this past January 16-17 towards Delhi in breach of settled protocol, setting off alarm-bells in the government.

However, VK Singh is not the first general to have crossed swords with the civilian leadership or acted in violation of the sound principle that in a democracy, the elected leadership must always prevail over the military brass. The latter can have no say in policy matters, nor must they comment on the civilian leadership, domestic laws, foreign relations or government decisions. This principle derives from the Constitutional separation of powers and the established maxim that the heads of the armed forces should “give professional advice to the government on strategy and military operations and on the military implications of defence policy”, but their role ends there. However, it’s the prerogative of the elected leadership to formulate policy because “major questions of defence policy cannot be decided in purely military terms without reference to the government's financial and economic policies, which affect the size, disposition and equipment of the armed forces.” Any departure from this principle can only undermine the paramount authority of the elected leadership to lay down policy and detract from democracy. This principle was occasionally violated in the past. For instance, in 1966, the then Eastern Command chief Gen Sam Manekshaw met a US diplomat in Calcutta and commented freely on Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations, revealed the strength of the troops under his command, and criticised the defence minister and the army chief. He panned the government’s Vietnam policy and purchase of arms from the USSR. He also talked of his chances of promotion as the army chief. In recent years too, military leaders have publicly pronounced on policy matters. Take the question of settling the Siachen glacier dispute with Pakistan, which has turned out the world’s highest-altitude, but wantonly expensive and strategically meaningless, conflict. India’s leaders were on the verge of signing an agreement on this through mutual withdrawal—in 1992, 2005, and again in 2011.

Indian generals overruled them. In 2005, army chief JJ Singh publicly opposed the decision to withdraw Indian troops without demarcating and authenticating their positions and flew in a group of reporters to tell them why it wouldn’t be in India’s interests to do otherwise. A deal was similarly scuttled again in 2011. Meanwhile, the Siachen conflict rages on, claiming scores of lives through frostbite, without strategic advantage to India.

An even worse instance is the army’s repeated veto against the home ministry’s proposal to partially lift the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from certain peaceful areas in J&K, strongly backed by the Abdullah government.

AFSPA gives the army unrestrained powers. It allows an officer to shoot anyone merely suspected of the intent to commit a violent act, including a breach of routine prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code. (Incidentally, this Section is permanently in force in all of Delhi barring Jantar Mantar!)

Worse, AFSPA gives impunity to the concerned officer: he can only be sued if the defence ministry grants the complainant prior permission to do so. This has never happened. Nothing can be a more brazen violation of the principles of natural justice. No wonder the law has been, and continues to be, extensively abused to kill innocent people in J&K and the Northeast.

Yet, Northern Command army chief Lt Gen B.S. Jaswal in 2010 publicly pleaded that AFSPA be treated as a holy document or religious book: “Don't touch this pious document…its provisions are very pious to me and … the entire Indian Army”. More recently, a general even threatened that the army would stop counter-insurgency operations if AFSPA is lifted—a clear case of blackmail.

The Indian government should have sacked these generals—just as President Truman dismissed Gen MacArthur in 1951 for issuing an unauthorised statement containing a veiled threat to expand the Korean war into China, and President Obama sacked Stanley A. McChrystal from his command in Afghanistan in 2010 for mocking Vice President Joe Biden and other civilian leaders. By failing to act against the delinquent officers, the Indian government has allowed army personnel to usurp an illegitimate role for themselves—and get away. Some consequences of such irresponsible and indulgent laxity have become evident over the years.

The most recent example is Mr Narendra Modi’s Rewari rally of September 15, organised expressly to mobilise ex-servicemen. This was attended by 20 senior-rank former officers, including Gen VK Singh, wearing their ceremonial medals and ribbons.

It’s perfectly legitimate for ex-servicemen to air their grievances about pensions and other benefits, and demand that these be redressed. But it is quite out of order for them to do so under a political banner with ceremonial badges.




The Sangh Parivar has systematically tried to infiltrate the military apparatus through shady elements like Col Srikant Prasad Purohit. The Bharatiya Janata Party has consciously cultivated and recruited retired military officers. BJP-led governments politically involved even serving officers.




During the Kargil war, the Vajpayee government got Gen NC Vij and Air Vice Marshal SK Malik to brief the BJP national executive. Again, serving General VS Budhwar provided logistical support to the RSS-organised Sindhu Darshan festival at Leh in 1998 and also attended it in 1999.




That’s not all. Serving Major General VS Budhwar provided logistical support to the RSS-organised Sindhu Darshan festival at Leh in 1998, attended by Mr LK Advani. In 1999, Gen Budhwar again attended Sindhu Darshan, where Messrs Vajpayee, George Fernandes and Advani were present.




The links between the BJP and groups of ex-servicemen have recently thickened. The president of the Tamil Nadu BJP Ex-Servicemen Cell has just circulated a note openly exhorting former soldiers to involve themselves in politics. The note says they should choose the BJP because of its “nationalistic outlook, candour, integrity of showing equal concern to all religions (sic!)…”




Gen VK Singh justifies his participation in the Rewari rally by claiming that his agenda was not political but nationalist. That won’t wash. Gen Singh is desperate to get political support—no matter whether from the BJP or Anna Hazare whom he joined on the India Day parade in the US.




This bodes ill for the largely apolitical tradition of the Indian Army. It wasn’t easy to establish this tradition, nor was it consistently followed. Nehru had to send Gen KM Cariappa to distant Australia so stop him from gratuitously tendering advice on economic and political issues. Indira Gandhi had to skilfully prevent Gen Manekshaw from making the threat of staging a coup—half in jest.




The danger of the Indian armed forces’ politicisation has now reappeared, in a communal avatar. It must be resolutely put down before further damage is caused.