Need for Defence reforms in India

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

The tragic accident on board INS Sindhuratna, which killed two young Indian Naval officers in the most horrible manner, should be examined in the context of the sad state of civil-military relations in the country. Moreover, this tragedy, coming close on the heels of the INS Sindurakshak accident which killed 18 Indian sailors last year, is indeed the most appropriate time for some much-needed introspection among the mandarins of the Ministry of defence and the politicians managing the country’s defence preparedness. 

The Indian higher defence system goes strictly in line with the age-old dictum of Carl von Clausewitz, the legendary German general and military theorist, who argued that “war is a mere continuation of policy by other means”. In India, political priorities, visions, objectives and mandate prescribe how the armed forces are funded, manned and managed. The Armed forces have almost no role to play in the formulation of the country’s higher defence decisions. Given the fact that a number of newly de-colonised states became dominated by their armed forces, including in neighbouring Pakistan, the experience of India, where the military is subservient to the civilian bosses, is a welcome change. So far so good. But this traditional decision to keep the armed forces at an arm’s length while making the country’s defence policies have led to a number of structural issues and the Sindhuratna tragedy should be seen as a result of this flawed structure of the Indian higher defence management. Indeed, the civilian suspicion of the armed forces have led the country to more than one strategic disasters. The most outstanding of them is the unilateralism of the political bosses in the run up to the 1962 war with China and the country’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese. 

This traditional civilian/political suspicion of the armed forced in conjunction with the post-Independent Indian state’s aversion to the use of force meant that there was a tendency to undermine matters military. This speaks directly of the Indian state’s strategic culture which clearly relegates military matters to the second order of things. More importantly, the civilian/political reluctance to give importance to the professional opinions of the Indian military leadership has led to the sub-optimal utilization of the country’s military prowess, as well as insufficient strategic thinking and planning. 
The Indian military and its strategising also takes place in a strategic vacuum thanks to the absence of any structured defence planning process between the civilian/political and military leadership in the country. There has been a consistent demand for security sector reforms in the country but successive governments have initiated no serious reform efforts yet. There is hardly any inter-service integration in the country nor is there an attempt to create the institution of the Chief of Defense Staff. Also what is urgently required in the country for proper defence planning is the merger of Armed Forces Headquarters with the Ministry of Defense which can then engage in defence policy planning in an informed and cohesive manner. 

In the absence of such institutional reform there is unlikely to be any major improvement in the country’s defence planning procedures.  The political bosses of the country, who are supposed to be manning the country’s defence planning with help from the civilian bureaucracy, are almost always preoccupied with political issues which are far too many in a country like India. Moreover, most of them do not have any interest or expertise in managing the various intricate issues relating to national defense or military matters. Under such conditions, it is the civilian bureaucrats of the MoD who end up doing much of the planning, thinking and managing of issues relating to the country’s defence planning and execution. How qualified are the generalist civil service officers of the country in managing the complex and high-stakes defence-related issues of the country? Someone with no prior strategic or specilised defence related training would find it extremely hard to get into the nitty-gritty of such issues especially if they don’t stay in the ministry for a considerable period of time. They would, as a result, end up either neglecting various serious aspects of the country’s defence or making status-quoist decisions which the Raksha Mantri will endorse given the proximity that the bureaucrats enjoy with the minister. 

The latest Naval tragedy should serve as a wake-up call for the country’s civilian leadership to introspect so as to realise the need for urgent reforms not only in defence procurement rules and policies but also the higher defence management systems. The current system of higher defnce management in the country is extremely archaic, to say the least. The resignation of the Navy Chief, who by doing so has assumed a certain moral high ground, and the prompt acceptance of his resignation by the Defence Minister are clearly inadequate to bring about accountability to the Indian defence management system. Why is that the Minister of Defence is unwilling to make any substantive or thoughtful political statements about these issues beyond uttering a few sentence with touch upon almost nothing? Why is it that we hear nothing about defence modernization from the Ministry of Defence which, at the end of the day, does much of the defence planning in the country? It would be self-defeating on the part of the civilian bosses to think that by putting the focus and the blame on the Navy, they can avoid major lapses and loss of the Indian soldiers in future.

(Greater Kashmir, March 2, 2014. IRL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2014/Mar/2/need-for-defence-reforms-in-india-30.asp)