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Military Losing its shineTime to recast short service commissionby Lt-Gen Harwant Singh ( Retd )In a developing economy, rapid industrialization and a country well on the roadto prosperity, preference for government jobs tends to decline. This has not

happened in India so far due to a number of reasons. One, government jobs offerunmatched security of employment, two, seniority overrides merit, three,mediocrity prospers, promotions are plentiful and finally, there is much rent to becollected with minimum risk. Government employees have still not shed thecolonial era hang-ups of being masters and not public servants: ego and falsenotions of status persists. Within the ambit of government jobs, militaryhas lost most of its shine, because hardly any of the pluses of government jobsapply to this service. Economically well placed democracies offer manyincentives and perks to make military service attractive and some whatcompetitive with other job avenues, so as to draw on the right material. Asopposed to this, in India, sustained attempts have been made to make this

service more and more unattractive, by disadvantaging it in every possible way.Even after spending much money on T V advertisements and lowering of intakestandards ( in recently held promotion tests 80 percent of officers failed in Part Band D examinations ) military has not been able to fill its huge deficiencies in theofficer cadre( approximately 24 percent. )As countrys economy further improves, less suitable candidates will comeforward to join the military but instead will be attracted to lucrative jobs from awide range of other options, where the intelligent and the more ambitious canrealize their full potential. This relegation of military as a profession, which bearson the quality of intake into officer cadre, will eventually impact our ability to facefuture security challenges: internal and external. Merely modernising and

upgrading equipment and weapons systems, building defence infrastructure etc,will be of little avail, if those who have to strategise and exploit to the optimumtheir potential, lead troops into battle, do not measure upto future demands ofnational security.Much before the Second World War, American government wanted to prune

down the defence expenditure by cutting down the strength of officer cadre by12000. Speaking before the Senate, General Douglas MacArthur, the greatestgeneral in American history said, If you want to cut every thing out of theNational Defence Act, the least element should be the officer Corps. If you haveto discharge every soldier, if you have to do away with every thing else, I wouldstill professionally advise you to keep those 12000 officers. They are themainspring of the whole mechanism; each one of them would be worth athousand men at the beginning of a war. They are the only ones who take thisheterogeneous mass and make it homogeneous group. Incidentally Indianarmy is short of 12000 or so officers. Persistently down grading of themilitary by the government and taking pot shots at it by all and sundry, isconsidered fair game. If the Army Chief talks of good governance, some MPs,which included later day defence minister, want him sacked. ( this was whenquarter of a million of his troops were deployed to ensure minimum governance

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in many parts of the country.) If the service chiefs stands up for their officers andtroops against the vagaries of the 6th Pay Commission and the Committee ofSecretaries, as a compulsively moral obligation and command commitment, aneditor-in-chief of a national newspaper wants them sacked. Yes sacked and noless! For these so called liberals and their warped and constricted understanding

of democracy, the civilian control of the military only means, not to reason why,--!When asked whether Indian Army can do a Geronimo( elimination of Osama-bin-laden) the Army Chief, says yes, ( without naming target/country ) the pressand a whole lot of others are at his throat. Raising the issue of his date of birth inpublic, leaking to the media that government has over-ruled his visit to attend thebiennial conference of Pacific Armies Chiefs does deliver grievous blows to theinstitution of the Chief. This periodic targeting the chief greatly irks the servingand veterans. When the home secretary makes a statement, almost sabotagingForeign Ministers visit to Pakistan, there is not a whisper in the media or thegovernment! We do have some strange notions of an Army Chiefs functioning

in the Indian democracy. On the other hand consider this. . When Britishgovernment decided to send troops for the invasion of Iraq, Sir Michael Boyce,Chief of Defence Staff of U.K demanded an unequivocal statement from thegovernment that the invasion was lawful, without it, Boyce felt, his troops couldlay themselves open to charges of war crimes. Figure an Indian army chiefdemanding anything even remotely close to such a requirement and do visualizethe storm it would generate and send many an editor into a tail spin, in the nameof civilian control over the military in our special democracy! It is not only themilitarys chief who can be easily targeted, but the military as an institution is fairgame to hunt. Sample only a few. .Due to periodic transfers, childrens education suffers immensely. To overcome

this drawback, military started own schools and a number of professionalcolleges. Now the Honble Supreme Court has ruled that admission into military'sprofessional colleges be opened to civilian children too. Why then should themilitary run such colleges! It is surely not militarys job to run colleges for otherthan its own wards, whose education suffers due to extreme turbulence in theirschooling. CAG has objected to military having golf courses in thecantonments on its own land ( class A land ) and that golf is not a recognizedgame! Surely the military can use its vacant land in the manner it feels best andalso the games its officers can and need play. It is military authorities concernand responsibility to ensure that their officers remain physically fit and mentallyalert. The CAG may not know, but his better half would, who is an avid golfer andplays regularly at the Air force Golf Course, that there is a golf course in thePresidents Estate in New Delhi. The government ( MoD ) wants to gain controlover units and formations private funds. Government created a department in theMoD for the Welfare of ex-servicemen with no one from the defence services onits staff. The attitude of the staff in this department towards the veteran iscompletely negative, bordering on hostility. At another level their SupremeCommander is in total denial of the painful experience of veterans returning theirmedals. Anomalies pertaining to defence personnel, dating back to 4th Central

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Pay Commission are still to be resolved: some two decades later!These are few cases out of the numerous where the military faces pin-prickingand neglect. This constant and needless needling and driving the military againstthe wall will greatly demotivate the serving and further dissuade those who maywant to joint militarys officer cadre. The most negative image of the military as a

career is reflected in the condition and the manner of treatment of veterans bythe government. Unless this picture is drastically recast, all efforts at TVadvertisements at great expense are a sheer waste of money. Authoritiescontinue to remain divorced from reality and therefore, needs to come alive tothe ground situation. Such treatment, the inherent drawbacks andtravails of military life bears heavily in selecting military as a career in India. Addto this the risk to life and limb. With very few promotions which come rather latein service and no provision for non functional pay which is available to all class 1central services, few suitable candidates want to opt for the military. Just about0.02 get up to HAG and HAG Plus Pay Band while on the other hand almosthundred percent of their equivalents in the civil, make it to these pay bands. A

government, with a bent of mind perpetually bent to downgrade the military inevery possible way and the manner of treating the institution of the army chiefand the veterans, does contribute immensely in making this service so veryunattractive.However here we are concerned with making the best of a bad situation andwork out means and methods to redraw the contours of officer cadre so as toattract, whatever could be termed as suitable material with the lowest possibleacceptable standard. There is the need to recast the officer cadre with muchlarger Short Service Commission officers. ( SSC ). This will not only, some whatimprove the career prospects of the regular cadre officers, but in the long run willbe economical to the state and the armys cutting edge will remain young and

vibrant. The right material can only be drawn if this cadre is made reallyattractive. .The intake into the SSC should be between 17 to 19 years age and after a shortspell of 6 months intensive training, serve for a period of 5 years. Since they areto serve for a short period, their standard at intake has to be rather high for themto fulfill tasks that are likely to be assigned to them and their subsequent assuredrehabilitation. This should be done by taking 10 to 15 percent ( after someentrance test ) into the civil services, another 10 to 15 percent into the CPOs andaround 10 percent offered regular commission. Another 10 to 15 percent shouldbe given free education at IITs/IIMs/medical colleges ( depending on suitability )with a stipend of minimum of Rs 30000/ per month and the balance admitted intomilitarys own professional colleges and given free education and stipend, muchof which would get adjusted against gratuity.It is through such incentives, particularly in the field of higher education, that the

U.S. army is able to draw on the right material and keep the deficiency in itsofficer cadre in the military down to around 3 percent. These young officers, withtheir military background and training, when absorbed into various fields such ascivil services/CPOs/business/ industry etc, will be able to bring about, in thesefields, change for the better. Military life offers unique opportunities to a young

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officer to develop leadership skills, learn to innovate, operate and deliver underextreme stress. They also learn to live with risks to their lives and are welladapted in converting adversities into opportunities. Once such a scheme isimplemented, nation will be able to draw benefit from this disciplined anddedicated pool of talent, while armys shortages in the officer cadre will be made

up to quite an extent. -----------THE END